Kingdom Hearts III - Essentially Embedded Existence
by ZeroXSEED
Summary: Xehanort is alive. Sora is pissed and turned himself into heartless. Roxas is angry and confused. Riku and Kairi? Well... After the discovery a certain Keyblade Master, new journey is started, enemies and friends, old and new will gather. While struggling with their own existence and budding romance, a spark ignite the flames of war once again. SoKai RoNaXi other (SPOILER)
1. Prologue

This is sort of alternate continuation to **KHII**. I admit, I'm new to this franchise and there will be a lot of factual mistake in this story, especially regarding the spinoffs such as BBS and 356/2 since I haven't played them at all, this might also means that most of 3D will be ignored as well, again, because my lack of knowledge. Even then, I tried to pick eveyr single spoiler I can get my hands on, so **BEWARE SPOILER!**

As the tag says it, **this is shipping fic**. Fixed pairing: Sora/Kairi, Roxas/Namine/Xion, as well as 'canon' Disney and FF couples, non-canon pairing will be decided later depend on how the story progress, that including the most unlikely pairing like Riku/Larxene or Lea/Aqua.

**The serious tidbits** are there for plot, some of the plot point is taken from 3D but otherwise, different. Once again, because my lack of play-through and scarcity of spoilers.

I'm not a big name author and I realize that I have a lot of limitation; I just want to write and want people read it and appreciate it. **Final warning**, there is **NOTHING** original about this fic, trust me. My only contribution that I **arranged** and **typed** this.

Enjoy.

* * *

**Kingdom Hearts III**

**-Essentially Embedded Existence-**

Disclaimer:

Square Enix

Disney

And everyone else!

* * *

_**PROLOGUE**_

* * *

"Now, now, don't be too hasty" the white haired vile smirked as he effortlessly lift the young boy with a grab on his face, he struggled to no avail, the strength difference is way too far, and he's alone._  
_

"Without your so called 'friends', you're nothing but little nuisance"

"I am NOT alone!" Sora screamed, and heartfully kicked the man's face, releasing himself. Alas, the man already behind him and once again, disarmed the giant keys he held.

The man's feet engulfed in shadow, and he kick hard enough that the boy is thrown and tumbled around for several second.

It doesn't end there. He grabbed the boy once again, and smacked Sora right on his chest to pull his heart out, before injecting all sort of nasty surprises. Sora howled due to the pain he received, but moreso than his body, his heart feel it the most. The Memories, memories of people connected to him, memories of those that is embedded within his heart, they all reacting negatively.

The suffering, the sadness, the pain and agony. He felt all of them, he experienced years worth of despair in the span of a minute.

Within him, something reacted. Anger, it was anger.

It was anger... directed at Xehanort. He wanted Revenge. Lot's of people wanted revenge.

And so, he once again summoned Kingdom Key and stab his own heart with it. As the blinding, flashy white light subsided, Sora had split himself into two entities.

"**I AM NOT ALONE!**"

* * *

_Heart_

_Heart is such a complex thing that nothing less than godlike knowledge required in deciphering them, and thus it's beyond mortal's reach, and even those who effectively immortals. Heart is its own universe._

_Hearts became the central of connection between those that live and those that are dead, Hearts become the bridge between the body and the mind, heart is the point of balance between light and darkness._

_Within each body, there's a heart, within each heart, there are mind and soul._

_Mind are such a fragile thing, and yet, it's the entire driving force, it's cold and logical, and its ultimate will, is to exist and survive. Soul is even more abstract, undefined, and yet it exists. Both coexist in the same place, the heart._

_Within a strong heart, there's a strong mind and soul. This is why, the stronger the original heart is the resulting heartless and nobodies are stronger and smarter. And with strong enough mind and soul, even nobodies may grow their own heart once again._

_And when they grew too strong, or something else strongly influenced the process, the resulting heart might be actually different than the original. They become mutually exclusive, but at the same time incomplete without each other._

_~Kairi  
_

* * *

Black, claw-like nails slashed the thin air, its edge dripping with corrosive darkness. Uncanny laugh accompanying the rampage fest of the corrupted heart of the young hero as he unleashed his fury to the lesser being around him, the heartless, themselves drawn to his magnificent strength.

"SORA! WHAT THE HELL!"

Roxas didn't understand what happened, a minute ago; he's still inside **him**, inside Sora. Then what could be described as resurrected Xehanort beat him (or them) senseless and tried to pull Sora's heart.

Now, he's on his own, with a physical body that he had fully control of, and Sora become something else. A heartless.

"Don't worry… I have control..."

The dark blot covering him began to subside, and the inhuman remnant that is Sora's heartless began to form a decent imitation… no, it was not much different than a human, his irises turned yellow, doesn't seems that uncanny as most heartless though. His hair is almost completely black, and his clothes now less colorful, looked like he's entering drive form, only purple and less glossy.

He seems to possess the dark claw, but overall his hands are completely human. What's more, his left shoulder is covered with bright gold pauldron.

It's unmistakably Sora…

"What again?"

_Interesting_, Xehanort thought. He had experience such thing once, giving himself to the darkness fully and become a heartless, but no ordinary heartless. he hadn't expected this outcome, but mostly, it's not against his plan actually.

"Talk less do more!" Sora's heartless charged again, stopped screaming as he summoned Oathkeeper in-between his teeth, trying to remember how he fought as a lion cub.

Wild, unpredictable, but not uncontrollable. He relied less on his claws this time, using them for parrying purpose only. He utilizes the Keyblade for the purpose of attack and finisher, releasing the heart locked within each of the poor, damned creatures of his kind.

Roxas waste no time further, summoning Kingdom Key… And Oblivion at the same time. He is greatly surprised by it, since Sora can only do it when Sora channeled his friend's power in the previous incidents. But maybe it's because his fusion and Sora is mostly incomplete, plus, what Xehanort did also affect him to lesser degree: now he knew HOW he can use two keyblade.

Still, even though Roxas is even less calm and using two blades, the speed and brutality of Sora's attack is impressive.

"Screw this!"

Sweat began to flood every inch of Roxas' new body as more and more heartless fell victim of the sacred blades, as the tidal wave of darkness subsidizes, Sora's heartless and Roxas found themselves back to back in defensive position.

"**Xehanort**" the human-shaped heartless growled as he removed the handle of his blade out of his jaw's grip, stabbing it on the ground. His voice had changed considerably, heavier and echoing inhumanly "**YOU WILL PAY**"

"I beg to differ" the man in question simply deliver a humiliating smirk as an answer "You gave yourself into darkness willingly, that much is not me to blame"

Roxas is surprised that as heartless, Sora is even less serious "**Yea, but there are other things you did that I think worse than me turned into this, what you did to Ven, Vanitas, Aqua, Terra, Roxas, Namine and…**"

The glint of Sora's eyes hinted how much anger he suppressed and covered with the happy facade, how much he wanted to tore Xehanort's limb by limb, parts by parts and sacrifice his blood for the greater good… but Roxas knew, Sora did not want to give in to temptation of Revenge, even if he can't resist.

No matter how much different they are now, they're essentially same person.

Roxas understood Sora more than anyone else. The only people that's even close to that? Maybe Namine, and…

"**And…?**" Roxas and the heartless raised their eyebrow at once, seemingly questioning each other, even though in this condition, they can't properly communicate using their connected consciousness.

"**You know, the Twilight Town hangout, with Axel**" the heartless pointed lightheartedly "**… only two of you? Nah, that's creepy image**"

Roxas of course offended, though he could understand, darkness tend to bring out a person's more chaotic traits and exaggerate them sometimes "No time for pointless sexual orientation jokes, dude! Save that for later! Xehanort first and foremost!"

They both dashed toward Xehanort, who casually blocked their attacks with his ethereal blades, countering their brutal assault with extreme grace, almost like he's toying with them.

"A disembodied heart and flawed substitute… what can you do to the complete me?"

"**I dunno, three keyblade strikes?**" Sora's heartless zapped himself out and bruised Xehanort's backside as he reappears, before disappearing again. Roxas waste no time with unseen X-shaped slash.

Xehanort decided that he's going to play with extra deck, and began to utilize his teleporting ability and spamming it as much as he can, alas, heartless Sora seems to be able to keep up with his speed somehow, and what little part of his darkness attack that hit Sora indirectly is dampened further by some kind of light shield projected by the forsaken pauldron. Roxas by any means not weak either, with the loss of Sora, he had full access to his original power, attack and defend using his two keyblades with ease.

Xehanort spat, sure thing, being outnumbered always been the reasons of his befall, twice even. Of course, it's only because he's a bit reckless for underestimating these two's combat prowess. The disembodied heart? Its flawlessly channeling the power of darkness like Xehanort's own, and the flawed substitute had full access to his own ability, unhindered by the original.

Worse, a door made of light is formed, and more of those imbeciles coming.

King Mickey is the first one to jump in, the two foot something mouse raised his signature weapon: the Kingdom Key D "Found you, Xehanort. So this is the reason why Master Yen Sid and Merlin so restless"

Xehanort frowned, but decided not to say anything.

This is certainly within his plan's parameter of deviation though, as long as he can survive. He made the sleeping demon within the young keyblade's wielder awake, that's his main objective, and he had fulfilled it.

He laughed satisfyingly, and left with a cloud of darkness opening a portal for him.

King Mickey screamed, not quite hysterically, but enough to prove that he's really, really shocked. King Mickey pointed his keyblade to Sora this time, "You're again, Vanitas!

"Wait, it's me! Sora!"

King Mickey didn't budge for a while, until he was convinced that yes, it is Sora "Sora? What happened with you? "

"Well, where do we start?" Sora raised his hands.

"You use Keyblade to unlock your heart out of this body?" Roxas pointed his chest "Okay, let's start with what Xenahort did… fuck"

"Language, Roxas"

"I'm sure I saw Xehanort... Sora? is that a new drive form or what?"

Riku examined him throughout, he's REEKS of darkness, though not as bad as most people they fought in the past. Yellow irises, and the fact Sora's 'king crown' necklace has been replaced with heartless emblem... there's only one possibility, aside form him using cosplay magic ala Donald.

"WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?!"

It's seems that for Riku to scream is very uncharacteristic, but again, Heartless Sora, HEARTLESS SORA. Anti-Form is bad enough on its own, now Sora wanted to channel Xehanort and repeat Riku's his stupidity?

"Riku, volume"

Riku clenched his teeth and suppress the outburst in the span time of seconds, temper tantrum never suit him anyway, so he accustomed to do that.

"You, THAT STATE, explain"

"Well…"

He looked at the eternally floating moon of the Dark Margin. Last time they're here, Riku is half dead and Sora is almost as helpless. It was Kairi's light and Mickey's guidance that helped them.

Kairi…

"Sora, you idiot"

Realized the owner of the voice, it's seems that Sora's heart sank deeper into shame rather than darkness, though, if anything, that made him even more like a human being. He ruffled his darkness laden hair furiously to calm himself, and sat on the cold sand beneath them "**Let me explain, Kairi**"

Her blue eyes, though almost as bright as his yellow, is a lot gentler and caring. This time however, hint of disappointment and great amount of worry plagued those beautiful set of orbs™, looking at him questioningly.

"It was like, what? Ten minutes ago? Remember when I trained you"

"That dirty old vile pulled you into portal of darkness" Kairi interjected, growing impatient "Then what?"

"We fought of course, that means I and Roxas. I admit, though I CAN use two keyblades out of Drive state, but I'm still not good enough at it. So in a short notice, now-perfected Xehanort beat and captured us… then…** he did something to me**" Sora's claw turned into perfectly that of human's hand, which made a squeezing gesture, made the King wince a little. As Sora's voice changed, it reminded Riku of the first Xehanort.

"**He reached for my heart, but instead of trying to pull my heart, he did something else… he seems to try to infect me with darkness and let it grew… instead…**"

Sora gulped a little, this part is a little hard to him, well, very hard, but especially for Roxas. Strangely enough, Roxas is the one reassured first with a nudge.

"**Well, the process seems to leak Roxas' more personal memory… and Ven's and Vanitas and…**" Sora's mouth left agape.

"And?"

Everyone is met with silence, "And who, Sora?" King Mickey took initiative to spoke.

"I don't know, there seems to be this particular person who I cherished…" Roxas held his chin as he jumped onto a top of a rock, and sat there "I, Axel… can't be only two of us I'm sure"

"Well, there's that…" This time, it's Riku who spoke "I am uncertain, but there is this particularly odd person even by Organization's standard"

"Namine… Namine said she COULD do something, but she had to save some energy first" Kairi stated with a mellowed tone.

Everyone wondered who is this person, seems to be important, and yet, they can't seem to remember who. This is especially visible with Roxas himself, as he's the most attached of them all. Only King Mickey who seems to be completely oblivious.

"Say thanks to Namine when she's awake" Roxas nodded.

"Anyway, back to Xehanort, the process made my anger to surface, so much that it's seems that he did it on purpose. Darkness began to engulf my heart… to prevent Roxas from being affected, I use my key to rip open my own heart out and let it take shape, first as anti-Sora, then the current me, Sora's heartless, who look like Vanitas"

"I thought… I can understand"

Everyone turned their attention to the mousy King; this is the closest thing to expression of despair to him, as Riku can attest.

"Riku, you do remember Terra don't you?" Mickey said "And Kairi, do you remember a blue haired woman named Aqua?"

Both of them nodded in agreement. "It's a bit vague though" Kairi added "I am four years old and only saw her briefly"

"Well, the story began ten years ago, Xehanort… he torn apart Ven, Aqua, and Terra. The story didn't end with happy ending, that… Xehanort manipulates everyone, an destroy everything as long as he could reach his goal. So ah suppose dat Sora experienced all of those via the memory leakage drove him berserk"

Mickey tries as hard as he can not to spill his emotion, but his heart betrayed him, or maybe he betrayed his heart instead. They began to share the complete story that happened ten years ago, how the friendship of three wielders torn apart and their suffering. The Unversed, birth of Vanitas, the creation of χ-blade, how exactly Sora can use Keyblades, how Kairi ended up in Destiny Island, and so on.

As they got a perfect picture of everything, it only cemented that yes, Xehanort is a heartless amongst heartless, monsters amongst monsters.

"I've failed my duty, either way. Ven's heart is locked inside Sora's, probably alongside Vanitas, Aqua exiled herself in the realm of darkness, and Terra… well, Sora, Donald, and Goofy fought him in the Keyblade Graveyard, in his armor form. Xehanort stole his body and heart, what remains in that armor, is his mind and soul"

"**Ven saved me**" Sora placed his hand on the majestic pauldron he obtained shortly before "Just like organization's black cloak and Kingdom key D, this will protect you from outside darkness. But there's more, Ven's will had been engraved in this armor, Ven had protected me by suppressing the darkness that grew exponentially WITHIN me, which is probably why I look like Vanitas"

"So that's why you seems to remain mostly intact, your situation reminded me of Xenahort the first time we fought him" Riku knock the pauldron several times, it didn't do anything "Except you're not evil"

"Well, yeah, that's the case"

"Then, let's fuse once again!" Roxas insisted "I'll never let you to stay in that form"

Sora crossed his arms and shook his head quickly "No deal. I'm not going to enter my body while my heart is engulfed in darkness like this; I need to cool down… even if that takes time"

"But you can't always depend on that armor!" Roxas furiously refuted.

Sora raised his voice as well "**I decide to trust Ven, I owe him, and I'm not letting Roxas anywhere near my heart soon**"

"Damn it, I'm not even supposed to EXIST!" Roxas' hand slammed into the sand angrily, tears began to stream from the corner of his eyes "It's not fair! Look at me, I'm a nobody, I don't even have emotion! Why I'm crying?!"

"Because you have a heart on your own, you are me, **you're part of me**, I'm incomplete with you, and I'm not letting you to get hurt**" **Sora closed his eyes and smiled, once again, summoning Oathkeeper.

He stood up and approached Kairi, reached her hand and putting it on top of him and the keyblade "And Kairi, this saved me as well. I'm not leaving you, not in pathetic state like berserking Anti-Sora. The Light of Oathkeeper is the reason I can be calm"

Kairi simply smiled, even though she's crying. She gently put his head on her left shoulder, her hand pat the heartless' back. "It's okay… I'm… glad"

"Listen, Roxas, I think… I can understand why Sora decided to do that" Riku put his hand on the poor boy's shoulder "I once afraid of the darkness within my own, but what's more, I don't want my beloved to be hurt by that…"

"But in the end, I decided to stay, and I think Sora will try to do the same thing"

Roxas stood up, wiping his tears away; he nodded "We'll find a way"

"But Sora, there's one problem…" King Mickey twiddled his finger "in that state, how ya could withstand power of light?"

"Hey, my heart is yet to be corrupted… well, at least the core part is. Ven is guarding it. Although, Oathkeeper not only keep my darkness suppressed, but it also suppressed my strength as being of the darkness… so as of now, I'm weaker than I am normally in certain aspect"

"Now I just remember… by any chance, Riku, did you just say Sora is similar to Xehanort two years ago?"

The white haired teen answered "Sort of"

"Well, I studied Ansem's Reports and then some other stuff in the mean time since our last adventure" Kairi said, she gave Riku a notebook. "This contain a copy of Ansem's documents, which is sealed and stored in Disney castle. It's locking system is purely magical, created by Master Yen Sid himself. So only a keybade or a very, very good magician can open it"

Roxas knock the notebook softly with his keyblade, and it opened. Riku skimming through ten pages or so until he found what he wanted.

To Riku's surprise, it contains authentic copy of Ansem's research, word by word. Suppose within the quarter year of peace, there's SOMETHING within Kairi which improved aside form her basic fencing and magic skill, but to be entrusted with such dangerous knowledge, she's really deserve her title as princess of heart.

* * *

_Ansem's Report No. 12_

_I have transcended to an existence of only the heart. I should have come back as a Heartless, but there is no sign of such a transformation._

_My body has surely perished. However, I am different from the other Heartless, keeping the memories of before, and I have not taken on the form of a Heartless._

_It is evident that there are still many things to be studied._

_In order to cross over to the dark realm, which is not this world, you must go beyond the door of Kingdom Hearts, the heart of all worlds._

_The core connected to the world's heart, the place that will take me to the world of darkness. (I will record the details in another report...)_

_There are still so many unknown worlds.__The Realm of the present...The Realm of Darkness. The Realm of Light. __And, The Realm of In-Between. __In which one does true paradise lie, I wonder?_

* * *

"Xehanort seems to separate his heart and body willingly according to this, perhaps the same thing happened with Sora, hence Sora become this... a special heartless almost indistinguishable from the original" Riku nodded, he closed the note with his own keyblade and returned it to Kairi.

"Only Sora still fought the darkness as much as he could, hah, I see!" King Mickey clapped his hand.

"And thus the darkness will slowly withering, I'll turn into disembodied heart, and after that, I could be sealed back into my body. **Easy, isn't it?**"

Riku wanted to smack Sora for his stupid statement, if Sora is exposed to overpowered light, he will instantly disappear. But between Xehanort's heartless, nobody, and now, the complete one, he doubt anyone turned into heartless can stay dead.

And then…

"But Sora, since the source of darkness is your anger to HIM" Riku postulated, Sora and Roxas crossed their arm and dancing, shortly after, Roxas summoned Oblivion, and they crossed their sword majestically, they shouted synchronously "Yeah, dude, we're going to beat that asshole Xehanort once again so we can return to our original state"

"Damn straight" Riku deadpanned "And I just began to love normal life"

"I'll return to da castle and see what I can gather. Xehanort only revived recently and I doubt that petty fella has enough manpower to take us together, see?" King Mickey said "Of course, with dat traitor, we can't be too reckless. All have everyone on alert, but no need to be too tense either"

"Now what do we do?" Roxas asked.

"What in the Kingdom Heart's name happened?"

"It's Xehanort and his usual jackassery" Sora lazily replied "Why do you... ask"

Sora's keyblade dropped, in place of tears, darkness seeped through the corner of his eyes, it wasn't darkness that grew too much, but darkness within his heart being banished by the surge of happiness and joy that fill Sora's heart.

"AQUA!" he shouted "You're alive?"

She unleashed hey own Keyblade as Sora approached, Sora had it coming and raise both of his hands as high as he could

From her lip only came one question "Are you Vanitas?"

"I can guarantee he is not..." Roxas put her blade down with his own, made her agape in surprise "And no, before you ask, I am not Ven either. Sora here is a living anomaly, he couldn't even create a nobody properly"

"**Hey**"

"But I'm thankful for that, it gave me, and other people, chance to exist"

"So you are Sora" Aqua watched the heartless boy intently, and while she could sense the darkness, she felt a strange familiarity and very strong light within him. They had met long time ago, and he had grew this much. "I'm sorry I don't recognize you"

"Well, technically... I AM Vanitas, in a sense that this my body is the darkness within my heart, reshaped by my memories that had Ven and Vanitas' mixed in" Sora grinned cheerfully, right hand on his armored shoulder "Don't worry, I'm not going to rely on darkness, for Ven always protect me"

"And you"

"Continuing from what I said, I'm Sora's nobody, Roxas, probably appear like this because of Ven's influence" Roxas introduced himself.

Even while sleeping, Ven still tried to help everyone. Aqua smiled softly and hug those two briefly, made the mid-teen boys blush in response. As she straightened up, she also bowed to Mickey, as a fellow keybladers and something more. "Your Majesty"

"Long time no see" Mickey nodded "Uh, even though I only remember you just now"

Aqua tilted her head, confused, it was Kairi who straightened him "His Highness has problem remembering people he not met often"

"Ah, Kairi and Riku, long time no see"

"I'm sorry with what happened with Terra and Ven" Riku said quite honestly, without sounding rude at all.

Aqua read Riku's eyes, he had been through a lot, well, not as much as Terra or Ven probably, but it shown on him. It's the kind of eyes that had seen the true nature of darkness, and experience the suffering being involved with it.

"Miss Aqua" Kairi bowed "Thank you for saving me years ago"

"I'm surprised you remember" Aqua nodded.

"It's the last thing I remember before I met Sora and Riku" Kairi took her hands gently and nudge her, as the other one pointed at the door of light "There, in Destiny Island"

Aqua felt the warmth irradiated form the door, that's where she's belong. True, she could blame everything on her unable to prevent the tragedy and stay here in exile, but it solved nothing. The problem will persist unless she fix it.

She WILL save Ven and Terra, no matter what. Seeing the new generation Keyblade wielders made her heart at ease.

"See if my body can withstand Destiny Island's sun" Sora walked first into the door of light, and felt some seizure as sunlight bathed his entire body, and screamed "**OW! OW! A little too bright**"

Kairi had him kneeling and put her hands, protecting his eyes. He opened his eyes, it's seems that as long as it's not the sun at its peak, he was fine with some light.

It took him several minutes to adapt, but he's fine even with bright sunlight. Aqua seems to have some problem too, but not as much as Sora did, probably because her problem is outright mundane: she spent too long in a dark place.

Riku sighed "But no matter what, your battle prowess will be reduced. With Oathkeeper and Ven's armor sealing most of your dark power and your state means you can't use light either… well, WHAT are you going to do?"

Sora already let his hand lie on Riku's shoulder, pulled him below so he could grin right on his face. Riku decided he HAD to rectify that, Sora is almost as fast as when he use his Dark Aura, to clarify, that's a short range teleport move with brief casting delay.

"… Right… you have double speed in that form…"

"And my resistance to darkness is only surpassed by Kairi" Sora pointed his chest, who have a tiny but still visible heartless emblem "Keyblade armor and being a heartless, **think the potential**"

"That's not how it work and you knew it" Kairi frowned and flicked him on the nose, there's a slight fizzle at that and made Sora yelped "**OW!** **What was that for?**"

"Not only you're vulnerable to light, but you HAD to avoid being exposed to darkness as much as you can, else you can never return unless blasted with extremely powerful light magic to smithereens, and if your heart didn't immediately return, we might have to find your heart somewhere in this universe because power of light and darkness transcend space and time" Kairi said "You know that's the simplest solution to avoid the corruption but we don't want that! Too risky and complicated in the long run!"

"By Pooh's sweet honey, of course I knew, Kairi! Why else do you think I didn't ask for assisted suicide from the beginning? Xehanort is revived and we need every single keybearers we can get!"

Everyone sweatdropped, they're seems to be confused that Sora could refute a murder threat so casually, even though as princess of heart, there's no way Kairi will do it without great regret and despair following.

"You just have to keep being optimistic, do you?" Roxas elbowed him softly.

"If I stop, I'll lose myself to darkness. No matter what, there's that light in the end of tunnel**... and I'll reach it**… and like King Mickey said: you shouldn't fear the darkness, for it forming the half of our universe, even if you can't accept it outright"

Aqua never feel so astonished, Sora's body is entirely made of darkness, and yet... his heart shone brightly, brighter than most people Aqua knew, not counting Mickey, Ven, and the Princesses. Sora is the kind of boy who dared to fight his fate. There must be a reason Ven trust this boy to this extent.

Mickey, who had been silent for a while, deliver a bright, wide smile and nodded.

In spite of his chaotic and frightening nature, Sora's very presence brought everyone a sense of peace. His eyes gleamed under the residual light from the bright sun, steam of darkness covering his body blown away from him little by little, until they almost completely disappear.

No matter the obstacle, Sora will always pass it.

Well, at least, when those are grave "But before Xehanort, there are your parents…" Kairi chuckled.

Sora and Roxas is look at each other in horror, and thus, a hysterical scream echoing in every corner of the beach

"**AAAAAGH!**"

* * *

**As for why Roxas STILL posses the Synch Blade ability so he can summon two Keyblades? Ven's heart is with him, NOT sora, Ven use his Armor as Magitek WiFi. Will be elaborated upon later.  
**

**Please click the review button and write what you think**. ;)


	2. Story 1: Sacrifice

Standard Disclaimer applies, and I do nothing but arrange some clichés and type it on my MS word.

...Well not really, I take some 'mentioned' characters in the game, and turn them into their own characters, so, technically I own some concept of OC stand in.

* * *

**Kingdom Hearts III  
**

**-Essentially Embedded Existence-**

Disclaimer:

Square Enix

Disney

And everyone else!

* * *

_**Chapter 1: 百日草 - Sacrifice**_

* * *

Situation in Sora's home is quite warm, but not without awkwardness. His mother sat on one edge of the table, and there are Sora, Roxas, and Kairi.

"So?"

Sora coughed before he spoke "You see, I have told you something about experience as someone else right?"

His mother nodded "Yes, you said you're sleeping soundly and we've forgot you completely… well, almost completely, only us and Kairi have the slightest idea about your presence… but even then-"

Sora face palmed and groaned "Mom, we HAVE gone through that, none of this is your fault"

"I can't help but feel guilty anyway, that's what parents felt when they feel useless"

Obvious, everyone thought. It was parent's duty to protect their children after all. But Sora insisted he has a point, when stuff like being the chosen one, or the unchosen one at that, is brought: age does not matter, whether it's hundreds year old wizard, mouse king older than half century, or a 14-year old kid.

Sora diverted the topic back "Anyway… when someone's heart turned into Heartless, they left a body. Those discarded bodies, still have residual mind and soul, came back to life, but not the same. Those living empty shells called Nobodies, they strive for hearts and identities on their own"

"When someone's heart is strong enough, their Nobody will stay almost perfectly human, and even grew a placeholder heart on their own. When the heartless and the nobody is killed with a keyblade, in that order, they will fuse back into its human self."

He looked at Kairi as if he passed a baton or something, she smiled and continued "However, neither Sora nor I is exactly normal, per se. Sora's heart contain someone else's and it probably influenced Roxas' creation, hence not only Roxas is more complete than any Nobodies ever exist -except mine, who just as weird-, and basically another person altogether, they also, in a way, unstable entity"

"My fusion with Roxas, as the result, is imperfect. It has its problem but I don't think its grave, at least where our fusion is matter, and basically, it what allowed us to exist separately like this for extended period of time"

Sora's mother inspected the boy; his face is perfectly matching that of Sora in his human form, only the hair is different. His look is even more innocent and yet at the same time aggressive.

"And basically you want to say you're now one of those heartless… right?"

Sora felt odd by his mother's rather calm reaction, but he'd rather have that than her being justifiably upset having her one and only son turned into ultra-chaotic being from darkness.

Then again, him sitting on the chair, talking and acting like his usual self, might be just enough proof that no matter his form, he IS Sora.

"By technicality? Yeah, but I'm special, Mom. I still retain my intelligence and humanity"

Just like our old enemy, Sora wanted to add, but prefer not to. Silence followed, none of them even blink until Sora's mother sighed in response

"Can't you just… you know, fuse back?"

Can't be that simple, she knew. But with all the chaos and hijinks they experience, and how lenient Sora looks despite the grave situation, there should be an answer already.

"Not the time, I'd say… we need all the battle capable people we can find. As we split, Roxas had access to his full power, and while I'm inferior to original me, I'm still one of the strongest around here"

Well, that's quite unexpected, if acceptable. Still, her curiosity had grown. "Two of you are stronger than you combined, Roxas? How does that work?"

Roxas, who fidgeted and completely mute since the beginning, is startled,

When he almost run away, Sora forced him to sit back, much to his chagrin.

"Oh, don't be so shy, you're one half of Sora, so please don't treat me like a stranger" Sora's mother waved her hand and pouted.

"Well, after fusion, it takes roughly six months to a year for someone to recover their full strength. Grand total time we spent together until now is roughly six month, but since I and Sora are different… it'll take more than a year, I think… so first thing first, Xehanort"

Her eyes stared into him, Roxas hid under the table, made Sora irked and Kairi giggled.

Sora's mother disliked the conclusion, too easy. Once again, she'll lose his only son (well, two of them, as of now).

Her motherly instinct wanted to tell them to stop, but her logic said otherwise. And even if she decided to, can she do it? Sora and his friend bore a big responsibility, and that means it's a duty of a parents to push them to move forward.

"So that means another adventure… and just when your father going to return too…"

Sora's eyes widened "Really?"

"He's very traumatized by my… death by heartless, and swore to get stronger than ever… even when we forgot about you, he seems to be at loss, saying random things like 'I felt like I had to find someone'. He also coming home more often than usual, as you know"

Two years ago, at best his father came home one month once and stay for few days. The longest he can go is three months, and three months has passed since the last time Sora saw him too, made him wonder.

The reason? He is a Sailor, well, since there's no navy, he's probably the closest one to it in this world, a part of private escort service. God forbid if he ever learn that Sora is affiliated with someone like Jack Sparrow.

Kairi leered hearing that, felt ashamed "Well, Selphie, Tidus, and Wakka said the same thing… I am very surprised by their advancement, to be honest. And for the first time, the local police force has upgraded their arsenal; so much that it's almost scary to see them in full gear. In fact, I'm the only one who still as weak as before"

Sora dove first into her defense, as expected "You hold yourself well back in the enemy castle… that has to count for something"

"Well, not quite enough… still, I'm not left behind again this time, I'll catch up in no time, you'll see" Kairi put her hand on his, so gentle that Sora not realized it at all.

Roxas and Sora's mother (well, his mother too, if technically) exchanged glance and seems to come with similar opinion.

"Well, it's almost lunch time. Sora, Kairi, why don't you go and fetch Riku? We're going to have a big feast"

Roxas wanted to note that he wasn't mentioned, but the wink she delivered told him something is up.

* * *

Same time, Destiny Island.

Riku yawned as he sidestepped the extremely fast spiked ball, and crouched when the ball unexpectedly return as it bounced due to power of reverse spin, aided by the grip resulting from the spikes.

Glanced aside, he saw the other half of a Nunchaku flail toward his head, finally getting serious, Riku unleashed his blade, Way to the Dawn, and deflect it.

Not end there, he had to clash with a bigger sword, which is crystal clear as seawater. The wielder, a blond boy, smirked. "What? That's the extent of your abilities?"

Riku disappeared with a flash of darkness, and putting the sharp edge of his weapon on the boy's neck.

"Sorry" Riku said, the boy only grunted and admit his defeat.

"Bah, we're way too far behind" a red haired, quite muscular boy complained, as he carried his spiked ball carefully "Sora handed our butts quite easily too"

"Well, it's not like our battle experience combined can compare" the girl with long nunchaku sighed, stored her weapon in a bag she carried on her waist "Makes me no doubt that you are the world savior"

"Sadly, not me, Sora is" Riku politely said "You might not know the details, but I had screwed up big time destroying the chance of being one"

"No way Riku" the boy with large sword groaned "Maybe you messed up here and there, but in the end? You AND Sora saved the world, together. Without you and Kairi, he is nothing but miserable wimp"

Riku smiled, if subtly "Thank you, Tidus, Wakka, Selphie"

The three teens widely grinned in response, and proceed to dogpile and smother the poor Riku, who is not the most social person in Destiny Island.

Aqua watched from a far, and smiled. Friendship, seemingly so meaningless in this cruel and unbalanced universe, and yet, it's such a driving power, a strong motivation, for one to do something meaningful.

Irony had done its job well, but unlike his mentor, Riku had fought and escaped fate from being swallowed by his own darkness. As such, Aqua had great faith in him.

When the three teen waved at her highly, she responded.

Riku approached her as they left "It's about lunch time, want to go back to the mainland and get something?"

Back in the darkness, Aqua never needs to do anything to fill her basic need, food, drink, none of it, elimination? Not a drop of sweat, hygiene doesn't matter either. Heck, she doesn't even need SLEEP.

Here, in the 'real' world, it's like she had reborn. She had actually forgot, the way her stomach churned, requesting something to digest. She chuckled "Why, thank you"

However, as Riku approached the docks, he found that one of the Cano had disappear again.

"Bon voyage de romance, Riku" Selphie shouted, then all three of them sung symphonically "Riku and Miss Aqua, sitting in a canoe~"

Two pair of eyebrows rose, but following that is total awkwardness; Aqua visibly blush a little, whereas Riku is fidgeting uncomfortably.

"They DO realize that I'm about twice your age right?"

"… I don't think so, we only introduced you as a friend from beyond the sea"

Because the rules imposed by King Mickey, they can only give so much information even to the closest person they had, though they never lies outright. So, they use sea as euphemism for lanes between, and faraway island for 'worlds'

"Maybe it's my clothes" Aqua looked at her clothes, which doesn't seem to fit someone in her late twenties. Riku realized this and corrected, complete with a calming, if gauchy smile "I think it's your physical appearance. Besides, from what I knew time passed differently in Realm of Darkness, the deeper, the slower"

The young woman looked at the sea surface, subtly checking her still young-looking face. Still feeling the softness of her skin, she glad. Riku's word has some truth in it, for Aqua herself (assuming she didn't miscalculate), time passed for a little more than one year, and since she already 18 before she fell to the dark realm, her physical appearance don't change that much. So, she's biologically nineteen.

Besides, she never actually conscious about body image until moments ago, so she shouldn't mind about it. Not like she had to take a bunch of sixteen years old teenager joke seriously...

Right?

"I can guarantee that as fact"

A game of tongue-tying ensued, and it wasn't until Riku pick the paddle that they began to spoke again.

There's the funny part where Aqua use her magic to create an artificial wave, boosting the canoe at considerable speed without the need of paddling, much to the island trio's chagrin. Riku swore their flabbergasted expression worth it.

"Say, Riku, how far you can use Darkness Power now?"

"I used to be quite good with it. Xehanort interference made the harmony wavered, but thanks to that, I've returned into my own self"

"Eh?"

"I look like Terra after possessed by Xehanort" Realized the sensitive topic he brought; he continued "Ah, I'm sorry"

"No need"

Aqua had been informed a little about his earlier adventure, until Sora, Roxas and Kairi left and Tidus, Selphie, and Wakka arrived. As Riku continued, he revealed that the influence of Terra-Xehanort on him isn't removed instantly, despite his initial defeat. The transformation happened when he tried to tap deeper into power of darkness to defeat Roxas.

And as he said, ironically it was Xehanort that rob him out of that appearance.

"One of things I lost is ability to open the Corridor to Darkness; I can still use most of my practical ability for battle though"

"I see"

As they reached the Mainland's dock, they found that Sora and Kairi apparently waiting.

* * *

"So, how do you feel?"

"Pardon?"

"Sharing your body with Sora, that is"

"Umm" Roxas muttered "To be honest, at first I'm against it, VERY against it. When I find my own origin, I think the world is unfair. It's worse when I learned that I am a freak amongst freaks, a Nobody that's different than others, I am unstable, and my mere presence is a shadow of Sora's former self"

"But Sora… he… he kept my presence rather than consume and absorb me a whole."

Not surprising, Sora, despite being rude occasionally, and a jackass at his worst, has infallible heart made of solid gold. As been proven by his heartless state. As a parent, she can't help but feel proud.

"At first, I envied him. And I returned for Sora due to obligation and that I have no choice, but I learn to accept him, his kindness. I began to accept my existence, not as abomination who shouldn't exist, but as someone special"

Yes, Roxas have no doubt. His existence has a meaning; he is going to change his fate, even if he couldn't save everyone. Riku had won his battle, Roxas won't lose either.

Interesting question was the next one to come.

"Someone… is there's anyone else who is similar to you?"

"Well, there is… Namine, the closest person Kairi has to a Nobody. I haven't figured how she came like that, but at least I'm happy that I've found a company. Now, she's residing inside Kairi"

"There's also Axel, and…"

Roxas stopped midway; again, his mind came to the direction of 'missing person'. But seeing the concern in Sora's mom face, he continued.

"Axel… he's my first friend, no, he's also my best friend, and my only mentor when I was born. I've born about one and half year ago, with the appearance of 14 years old boy, but just like other Nobodies, I had no personality. Axel of the organization taught me emotion and values of life, and somehow, I rapidly grew, closer to human than anyone else in the Organization. I began to question their motive… and fed up with their silence, I left"

"After a certain point where I tried to left the Organization, I was captured again. I was reborn once again in a duplicate world created by the Organization, with a new set of identity and memories. Apparently, it's to distract me from remembering my 'true' self, while Sora absorbed me little by little. They want to use Sora for their clause, and for that, they need Sora being complete"

Sora's mother contemplated for a while, and then continued to chop the veggies on the cutting plate. True, being involved with 'world saving' business, it will be odd if Sora didn't involve himself in some kind of large scale conspiracies.

"This Organization… they sound Ominous. But from what you said, Axel is a good friend, true?"

Roxas' mellow expression replaced by a VERY bright smile, so much that Sora's mother felt he had to shield her eyes figuratively. Roxas REALLY look cute, perhaps even cuter than Sora. She felt guilty, but then again, Roxas is her child too.

"Yes, he isn't evil per se, there are moments where he's needlessly cruel, but otherwise, he's a good person."

" Sora even said that in the end, Axel sacrificed himself to save Sora, saving us. Not everyone in Organization is fully dedicated, and some of them aren't even loyal to begin with. I hope I can meet him again, if the theory is true, and resurgence of Xehanort is enough proof, then Axel must be alive, as human… somewhere"

"You'll meet him for sure" she rotated the stove's switch to put the fire down. Removing one of her mittens, she put her gentle hand on his cheek "As long as you don't give up hope, Roxas"

Roxas looked to her eyes, so wide it might pop out sometimes. With a smile that reminded her of Sora hours before his first adventure, Roxas said "Yes!"

With Sora alone, she already felt overwhelmed by the sweetness sometimes. Now there are two, she should check her blood sugar just in case. She mischief smirked "And remember to call me Mom, okay~"

"Yes mo-wait, WHAT?"

* * *

Since they still have a lot of time, Kairi decided to bring Aqua and introduce her to the Mayor, her adoptive father. Mayor lost his fiancée in an accident when they're still young, and never seek someone else since then. That was when Kairi arrived, filling the void within his heart. I no time, they form a close father-daughter relationship.

Or as of recently, more like brother-sister. Kairi had grown to a splendid girl and her way to adulthood, but her dad has the mentality and mood of a spoiled young teen.

"SORA?! WHAT HAPPENED WITH YOU! WHY DO YOU LOOK SO GLOOMY AND SCARY?!"

Sora leered his eyes and grin "Sora's heartless to be correct"

Dramatically, the man in his early thirties backed off, and pointed at him as if he's the filthiest people around "Heart... HEARTLESS?! YOU MEAN YOU'VE BECOME THOSE DARK, NASTY, FORSAKEN CREATURES?!"

"SORA! DADDY! THAT'S MEAN!" Kairi chastised them, Sora at least had the slang privilege, but that still rude to the person-turned-heartless that has no control at all "Heartless are people too"

"Not all of them-" Riku pointed, since originally Heartless are darkness came into life "Invalid" Kairi quickly crossed her hands, the situation alreayd complex as it is, so Riku sighed in defeat.

"And how exactly you ended up like THAT?"

Sora spill the story behind his 'origin' like kicking a bucket full of marbles, and the more words said the more horrified the Mayor look, AND the more Sora look like a sadist. Sora clearly enjoyed this, much to Aqua's confusion.

"Sora, I swear you hate your father in law... learn to respect him don'cha" Riku noted, Sora and the Mayor turned their attention to him, slackjawed "WHAT?"

The much taller blond man lift Sora easily on his collar, eye meet eye, he hissed.

"You... you little, perverted, ungrateful brat, WHAT KIND OF HUMILIATING AND SHAMEFUL THINGS HAVE YOU DONE TO MY KAIRI?! EVEN ASSUMING YOU TWO MARRIED WITHOUT MY CONSENT, AT LEAST INVITE ME!"

"**I do NOTHING, bleach your dirty little brain, can't you?**" Sora growled, and slap the Mayor's arm away from him "**Riku, you jerk!**"

Kairi huffed, the day will end shortly if she left them in the same room without intervene "You deserve it, and Dad, please behave! We have an important guest here!"

Aqua, who's pretty much silent until now, began to spoke, and the first that came out verbally is a simple question "Why did they act like that?"

"Nah, just an old harmless grudge. Sora is rude sometimes, but he's a jackass with the Major. This is because Major is very overprotective, you see... and unlike me, Sora dislike backing down sometimes" Riku noted, almost whispering in fact "As you can hear from his words though, not like Major against Sora and Kairi's relationship or anything, he's just like meddling a little too much"

"Ah... so Sora and Kairi have a special relationship" Aqua nodded, spoke just as low as Riku is. Odd, she never been this interested with romance stuff, but since this involved seventh princess of heart, she is eager to listen.

Besides, she might actually indirectly responsible for it, since she IS the one sending Kairi to Sora's homeworld... quite specific, really.

Riku scratched his head "Well, you can call that, nothing is official by this point, hell, they might not understood it fully, but everyone has the same guess, assuming fate-wrecking, soul-ripping, world-ending, heart-breaking stuff didn't happen, the ending is clear as sea water... it's like a silent agreement that everyone refrain from saying anything more than a friendly tease"

"So father, let's start form the beginning. Father, this is Miss Aqua, she's the one that saved me when my place is overrun by darkness"

"How?"

Kairi pulled her necklace out to show it clearer, realization hit the Major, Kairi always have that necklace ever since her arrival "My charm, it guides me to this island"

"Ah" the Mayor nodded in agreement, years ago, he didn't believe about myth and legend years ago, but stranger things had happened in here, ever since Kairi's arrival. The man gently bow, like these that of nobles. "My name is Lei Fong"

Aqua returned the favor.

"I'm truly sorry by our unruly behavior" he leered at Sora, who just jeered at him "I'll have the maids prepare for confectioneries-"

"Actually, Sora's mother invited us all for a feast" Kairi said "But all things considered, we'll have Miss Aqua as a guest to stay at night"

"There should be no problem"

"Always unfair, always~" Sora shrugged.

"Sora" Kairi crossed her arms, this is the closest thing to Kairi being annoyed, and the boy didn't want to be pointed by the sharp end. "Right, I'll shut up"

* * *

Situation in Sora's residence had been... less than tense, but hilarious nonetheless. From the way Sora's mom doting on her son, especially. Sora has a field day teasing Roxas on it. Kairi helped her with cooking, and after her introduction, Aqua too... but the result is less than marvelous, or maybe, too marvelous.

"WHO COULD EXPECT" indeed, not that Aqua's cooking tastes bad, no, it's excellent. But the shape, just the shape.

"Did that spaghetti just... wiggle?" Riku twitched.

"No, it's just difference of expansion between one side of noodles an the other, but how you can managed to do THAT makes me wonder" the mother laughed and pat the embarrassed younger woman on the back.

"It just happen alright" Aqua is this close to being upset, though her face doesn't show it.

"I never though corn soup can **sparkle**" Sora said, "Aw, if you going to eat it, don't complain" Roxas chided.

If there's a corridor of darkness opened nearby, Aqua might as well jump into it out of embarrassment. So she need something else to switch the topic "Sora, did you feel hungry?"

Roxas added "Yeah, you eat like a crocodile"

"To be honest, no" Sora stopped eating after his third bowl "But I still can taste the food and feel my stomach full, it's more or less about fulfillment of personal satisfaction"

Weird biology aside, that does make sense "So you can use potion too"

After the lunch, Kairi decided to bring Aqua around the town with Riku, Sora decided to stay in his home, in case his mother traumatizing Roxas with overexposure.

The mainland was neither too ancient nor too advanced, but not only it's very peaceful, the people there are very friendly and kindhearted. Once again, Aqua meet the other three teenager and this time, can converse properly. It's seems that the archipelago is located in the middle of vast ocean, and would require days of sailing to reach other place, so it's mostly self sufficient.

By then, she also learned that Riku had lost his mother when he's still very young, and his father rarely spend time at home due to his profession.

"If only my father is here, I'll introduce him as well but he's probably out there, somewhere in this world digging artifacts" Riku said "He's an archaeologist, you see"

Aqua decided not to ask further, but Riku doesn't seem too displeased on the topic either

* * *

Night has passed, and both female awake early in the morning. Shortly after breakfast, Kairi decided to talk with Aqua in her own room.

The conversation is mostly random, and mostly from Aqua's side, in that case, emphasis is put on Aqua's experience as Master Eraqus' disciple, and how she met Ven and Terra, and how their friendship grew and torn apart.

Loud bangs on the door broke the solemn atmosphere, complied with Kairi's father calling. "KAIIR! KAIRI! OPEN THE DOOR!"

Kairi is the closest one to the door, so she quickly complied. Her father is a mess, he's extremely sweaty and he didn't wore his formal-looking signature Grey coat. And for some reason Kairi don't want to know, he's carrying an elaborated cane too.

"Heartless, they invade again!"

"Is it Xehanort?" Aqua mumbled.

"Maybe, but there's that other possibility" Kairi bit her thumb, thinking "Uncontrollable darkness take shape and seek for the keybearers... there's not one or two, but no less than FIVE keyblade wielders in this island... Xehanort didn't really have to send the heartless, he already break the lock"

"In his current state, Xehanort should be able to use keyblade" Aqua nodded, considering his usual shtick, Xehanort can do anything and they can only find the truth later.

So first thing first, is to survive and minimize casualties. Either drive the heartless back to their place or plain old extermination.

Kairi took a guitar bag she stored inside her wardrobe. "What is that, Kairi?"

Kairi pulled the zipper, and took out a Keyblade. It was Aqua's keyblade, born from the feelings stored within the flower Kairi gave her. The keyblade's appearance is quite majestic, mostly gold and covered with stylized ornaments. The key's name, is Destiny Embrace.

"I can't summon this like Sora or Riku did, so I store this manually with a magically embedded guitar case. Though Merlin claimed this bag can suppress the Key's aura, but there's always that chance Heartless able to sense it... I'm really a fool"

"I think I can join Sora and Riku in their crusade... but three months has passed and my skill with sword is very dull, Selphie even said I can fight better using a laundry pole, for God's sake"

Aqua summoned Master Eraqus' keepsake, The Master Keeper. In contrast, it look duller in color, and yet at the same time, looks a lot tougher with the sign of bolts and plating, hammering the fact that it's created a tool for battles and war, and a symbol of the Mastery as a Keyblade Wielder.

She think Kairi's ability has something to do with their past encounter, though Aqua don't remember if she ever give the inheritance to Kairi, she decided to entrust

"You're no fool, Kairi" Aqua smiled "This might be not the best time but please concentrate a bit, ask your heart and wish for power"

Aqua put her hand on Kairi's, while the same time touching the ornamental key.

Kairi sunk to the floor which had turn into something like ocean, Aqua look at her from above with a caring, believing expression. Kairi nodded and let her sunk deeper into the void of nothingness below.

Stained glass formed the floor where she landed, with her own younger self as the main picture, surrounded by Sora, Riku, Namine, Roxas, Pluto, and Aqua's face, each of them are circled.

There's an empty circle between Namine and Roxas, and then, Namine materialized from her circle, while a figure roughly the same height wearing black coat appear from the missing circle.

"Browsing mind is hardly easy task, sorry" Namine smiled "I've found the missing person at last, but to unravel the perfect identity, we need more people and more time"

As shadow of Namine grew larger and larger, Kairi shouted "Namine! be careful!"

* * *

Aqua don't know if it's a good time, but she managed to send Kairi into 'Dive'. At last, Kairi will obtain her own strength,a projection of her own Heart.

"I don't know what did you do, but I trust you" the Major sternly said, pulled a cane and apparently unleashed a sword hidden within it, a sword so thin and sharp, Aqua's eyes already telling it's questionable value as weapon

"Don't be fooled, this is made of heavy metal alloy and can withstand five times punishment compared to best sword made of steel"

"Don't let yourself get harmed then, you're Kairi's only family that exist as of now"

The Major nodded, Aqua charged with a blinding speed through an ambush by Shadows, only turned them into disembodied hearts in no time. He muttered in disbelief on what he saw, NEVER he saw heartless being dispatched with such ease "By the fate, don't tell me that brat fought enemies as strong as you regularly"

"If what someone said to me is true, yes, he did"

"He better survive and don't disappoint my dearest Kairi for not surviving then" the Mayor slashed a shadow into pieces, though not as fast as Aqua, he was confident he can protect himself, most of the enemy is after anyway. "IT'S PIMPIN TIME!"

Leaving the Mayor's house, the number of heartless increased exponentially, but she glad that they decided to chase after her than bothering random person, remembering the path, Aqua went for Sora's house.

Sora and Roxas fought heartless on the rooftop of a large building, allowing dozens of people to evacuate unhindered. Riku appeared beside Aqua as he materialzed out of Dark Aura, and they exchanged glance before Riku spoke.

"Good good, just LOOK at those creatures" Wakka slammed his spiked ball into a Shadow, obliterating it into black smoke. Selphie's tonfa swayed the one jumped on the bigger boy, sending it to Tidus who finished it with his big sword.

"But compared to us… Sora is really impressive… though I think him with black hair is lame" Seplhie commented

Sora literally ran along the wall, fighting solely with Oathkeeper and his fist, once, he punched a weakened Neoshadow so hard it disappears, to his dismay. Enemies' incoming, he simply take care them off.

"OUCH!" Tidus tried to parry a Neoshadow's attack and slammed to the wall for his trouble, thankfully, Riku zipped from nowhere and deliver swift barrage of Dark Fire, allowing Selphie to finish it. "Thank you Riku!"

Riku nodded and flashed away.

Riku appeared beside Aqua as he materialized out of Dark Aura, and they exchanged glance before Riku spoke.

"Where is Kairi?"

"Diving"

Riku don't know what's worse, Diving mean she had to fight few Heartless and something far more dangerous, 'the guardian' Darkside, but it gave chance Kairi to shine, maybe literally. Besides, out here, there's no room for protecting each other, each Key wielders are for themselves.

_Then again, did Kairi even have slightest bit of darkness within her?_ He honestly don't know, maybe she had, maybe she hadn't.

Riku and Aqua once again disappear from normal eyes' view, moving so fast that most people can only see flashes and afterimages. No less than twenty Heartless of all type turned into trail of darkness and disembodied hearts.

As Riku materialized above the clock tower, the city is covered with purebloods; there must three thousand of them AT LEAST, that's not much of a threat with him, Sora, Roxas, and Aqua inbound, but the innocents and lesser fighter is another story.

"Let's go for the sub island, we can fight freely there" he screamed.

All of them reached an agreement.

"Tidus, Wakka, Selphie, we're going to lure them toward the other island, keep the people safe!" Roxas use both hand to amplify his voice.

"Who is him?" Selphie muttered in curiosity.

"Dunno, but he's almost as good as Sora or Riku, maybe better that he use two of those weird sword" Tidus rest a little after his twentieth prey.

* * *

Kairi is having a hard time, the enormous heartless several times had FLIPPED the platform, made Kaire, Namine, and girl in black cloak fell, but then, they always end in the same glass platform, which never breaks either.

Thankfully, Namine and Kairi had at least good enough reflex to avoid most of it's attack, but neither Kairi not Namine can counter either. In game of endurance, their defeat is ensured.

"What should we do"

"Think, Kairi" Namine rolled aside, hair away from being squashed by her own shadow, she panted "I CAN tell you, but then, it's not you, you will never found your true self"

"And your death supposed to be BETTER? Give me a break" Kairi use her key to soften the enemy's attack, which blown her away to the edge. She felt like her wrist is squashed, but she keep her battle stance, between pain and fatigue, the thought of losing Namine is far, far worse.

"Then it's up to you" Namine smiled.

Kairi stood straight, closed her eyes and do what her other self told her to, think. Another attack is incoming, but it's blocked by a **tiny** ball of light, which grew larger and larger overtime. She raised Destiny Embrace as the key float to the sky, and it began to change it's shape as it descend slowly.

"Good" Namine and the cloaked girl grabbed it, and gave it to Kairi.

"Let's destroy this monstrosity" Kairi nodded, THIS is her weapon, the projection of her heart.

The Darkside still having a hard time against the head-sized sphere of light, it howled in agony, trying to punch it and counter it with large mass of darkness flame dozen times larger didn't do anything. The residual energy peel it's skin little by little.

And Kairi aimed her new weapon, a spear-shaped Keyblade, to the sphere.

* * *

When Kairi awake, she's in the peak of a hill, the sub island, her playground. Down below, his friends are fighting fiercely against massive horde of heartless numbering in thousands, so much that it's like the sand and sea is swallowed whole by darkness, like before.

"I still have a lot of energy left"

"Don't be reckless, Kairi!" Namine shouted in her mind.

Kairi raised her spear again, forming yet another sphere of light, this time right above her. The sphere's diameter increased by magnitude, larger than she's tlal this time, and it's even brighter than the sun itself, startled the heartless below and made them scream in fear and anger.

Sora is disturbed too, but he glad Kairi has returned.

"Sora! Come here!" she called.

"What?"

"I already said I'm not going to blast you with superfluous light right? C'mon!"

"Whatever" Sora climbed the rocks with inhuman speed. "Sora! You crazy! Stop!" Roxas screamed, getting THAT close with so much light is suicide.

"Hug me" kairi told him"

"Eh?"

"JUST DO IT!"

"Ah, screw it!" Sora embraced Kairi tightly, though he tried not to crush her.

Between the burden of keeping the light in compressed state and Sora pumping air out of her lung, she shouted desperately "SACRIFICIAL NOVA!

Kairi stabbed the sphere and it blast to the sky as massive beam, before converging into hundreds of falling meteor raining down on the island, in the span of ten second, all of those heartless is annihilated, consumed by the amount of light that could only rivaled by the Kingdom Hearts itself. The blinding, flahsy white light had come like a Divine Intervention, stopping the battle instantly.

It was beautiful, and yet the same time, brutal and merciless. The Princess of heart didn't do it out of spite, she did it because she had to, and it's a battle for the sake of maintaining existence, the only rule, is to survive.

Riku himself felt the darkness within his heart waver in fear when one of the meteor swoop ten Shadow in front of him, breath away from blown him directly.

The scenery can also be seen by everyone in the mainland, most of which are fighter who dared to fight what's left of the dark forces. Selphie and Tidus slain the final shadow in their sight before stopped in awe.

"What is that?" Wakka mumbled.

"Kairi..." she muttered in realization.

Followed the disappearance of light and shadow, the fighters began to put into their battle stance again, in case some of those heartless survived. No, none of them. Besides, with that amount of light...

"SORA!" was the first one came from Roxas mouth as he dashed hastily, Riku proceed to brought him on his waist "SORA!"

The purple-clad boy is cradling the frail looking girl figure in his arms protectively, his body trembling, and darkness seeping out of his skin.

"SORA! KAI-"

Horrified look pictured on Roxas' face, "Namine…" he muttered.

Namine twitched, and gently pushed Sora away, all the while examining him "Kairi, that Idiot!"

"Ugh… Kai… Namine?"

"I'm sorry, Sora, I tried to stop her but…"

Namine passed out as tears flowed out from the corner of her eyes, Sora forced himself to stay awake and check on the pale blond girl. Namine is full of darkness residue he noticed, and Riku seems to share similar opinion.

"This isn't normal, as far as theory concerned, Kairi SHOULDN'T have any trace of darkness except...it's Namine's" Riku began to explain "Without Kairi as her source of light, Namine would be vulnerable to the influence of darkness"

Roxas, being the fittest guy around, carried the unconscious girl bridal style. Sora had just began his recovery from the painful experience after exposed into light magic with such intensity, as the radiation alone had made him feel like he's nailed on every inch of his body, as the result, Riku supported him.

However, that was nothing compared to what he will experience if Kairi didn't call him to be near her. In the end, Kairi did as much as she can to protect him.

"It's okay, what about Kai-Namine, Riku?"

"She's fast asleep, and I can feel the dark influence began to disappear overtime"

One Neoshadow appeared from the beach, and proceed to ambush the unsuspecting Roxas. Fortunately, what followed next is a considerably long pillar made of steel. The force of impact, easily more than tier-2 magic can provide, had destroyed the neoshadow in one shot.

It's a tall, muscular man. His spiky hair going along with the wind current and he's wearing an outfit with very familiar color scheme.

"Dad?" Sora asked happily "Dad, is that you?"

"I'm home, Kid" the man smiled, between his brown hair and blue eyes, red and blue tight clothing, and his fetish for belts and silver chains, he look like a fully grown up Sora (in human form) "Did you dyed your hair or what?"

The man easily carries the metal bar on his shoulder, easily the size of his own leg and almost fifteen foot long, it must be weighed twice that of his own body.

"It's a long story; let's just say it's a side effect of our encounter with the final boss who had returned once again to endanger this world"

"I've seen weirder things" the man ruffled Sora's hair affectionately "As long as you keep being yourself"

"So you have no problem with me having a younger brother?" Sora made an introduction gesture to Roxas, who carried Namine "Meet Roxas and Namine, she's Kairi's equivalent, but at present time, she and Kairi shared a body-"

His father waved his hand weakly, despite has no problem carrying hundreds pound metal bar. Things getting out of hand very quickly. "Just… stop there, kiddo"

"Okay"

* * *

***Hides in his bunker***

**Liberty, freedom of speech yay! I knew that's a lot of asspull but come on, she's a princess, Not a mary sue!**

**She's not going to solve everything by blasting the enemy with her light, neither is she going to one-shot three thousands heartless without repercussion. As you can see here, she become Kingdom Hearts' equivalent of tactical nuke, devastating, but very costly.**

**Besides, Namine too, will got her own power, but not the kind of power you expect.**


	3. Story 2: Rememberance

**I just realized it recently, and that's because my sister said so: this is amalgam of scattered information with limited credibility mashed up into one fic which may not be understandable. I knew this is not going to be popular, positively or negatively, but meh, I want to write and that's about it. However, if you want to comment, please just comment and no holding back.  
**

* * *

**Kingdom Hearts III**

**-Essentially Embedded Existence-**

Disclaimer:

Square Enix

Disney

And everyone else!

* * *

**_Chapter 2: 紫苑 - Rememberance  
_**

* * *

Casualties are zero, injured are minimum, and collateral damage is within manageable limit. Everyone spend the rest of time cleaning and celebrating. Everyone thanked the keybearers for their valiant effort, though they gave Kairi a special credit after.

But of course, Mayor is throwing a hissy fit at her disappearance.

"WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED WITH MY KAIRI?! MISS AQUA, PLEASE EXPLAIN!"

But he didn't find Kairi, instead, it was a blonde girl around similar age… no, probably a bit younger. Though, her facial shape made it obvious.

"Don't worry, she's vast asleep. I'll take her place for a while, though I'm still relative weak too. By the way, my name is Namine"

Seeing the blonde with unsettling resemblance to his daughter, he freaked out as he put two and two together "You… don't tell me you're a nobody too! Nobody can't be this cute!" It was Kairi all along, despite appear differently, he can feel her.

"I take offense into that, Sir" Roxas said, much to the Mayor's shame.

Lixe Roxas, Namine still wear Kairi's casual dress rather than her favorite white minis. Granted, Roxas' clothes no longer magical in nature due to Sora taking the aspect out (else they'll see a naked heartless), as seen by the dirt on his shoes and tear on his pants. She relaxed herself on the bad, trying to stay awake without putting too much strain on the exhausted body.

The blond boy placed Namine on the bed and held her hand gently, their fingers intertwined. "Its okay, Namine, we're safe now… thanks to Kairi"

"She's a fool, she deserve that. Now I can't spend more energy on the search anymore" Namine cried, even though she's blaming Kairi, she's part of her, and could feel her pain and suffering, even though not as literal as most people expect "Listen, Roxas, that person… that person is a girl"

Roxas pulled a chair that's been idle and sat on it. "A girl?"

"Ah… now I remember that, yes, she's a girl" Riku confirmed, putting a fist on one palm "That's what you find just now?"

"Yes, it's far from finished, even at the fastest; it'll take weeks to get complete information. Since I use Kairi's heart as a hub, everyone's subconscious is linked. Kairi almost exhausted the light of her heart in that attack, and to keep it safe from my darkness, and me from outside darkness, she locked herself inside with by compressing the ambient light of her heart into a protective shell"

Sora nodded in agreement "You can equate to how Kingdom hearts survived from being consumed by darkness, before, her heart is more like Cornerstone of light that scare away darkness"

"Sora and Kairi. You two are really smart, and yet, reckless idiots" Roxas yelled.

"Damn straight" The heartless grudgingly answered.

"It's okay, even if you're a nobody, you'll be my cute daughter as well don't you? Let father hug you for the first time-" Mayor's face meet Namine's palm, who's not really that comfortable being touchy-feely with him, something Kairi had imprint on her "Ugh"

"In case you forgot, Namine isn't a saint like Kairi is" Sora and Roxas chorused satisfyingly.

"And she **loathed** sexual offender" Sora added even further, everyone looked at him in confusion "What? Marluxia only pretend, don't you know? Namine had enough experience being touchy feely with the one she don't want to-"

"THAT QUEER IS PRETENDING?" Roxas is the one surprised the most, Namine just smiled weakly seeing his flabbergasted, exaggerated look "Well, Sora just exaggerating but Larxie and Marluxia doesn't knew a little bit about personal space. And what do you mean by 'queer'?"

That and add 'child abuse and slavery' into account. Mayor is horrified as it is already, so Namine stopped them before they can elaborate. So Riku and Sora dragged the screaming, overbearing father out of the room asking what else Namine had experience.

"You make them sound like flawed people than bunch of evil amongst evil" Roxas pouted.

"They're flawed, and to be honest I still have nightmares about my days in Castle Oblivion. And if, IF somehow I met either of them, I'd probably hid in fear" Namine admitted "But really, can they be worse than Xehanort?"

"No one can be worse than Xehanort" Roxas said in a bitter acknowledgement "As far as I can remember, only the likes of Maleficent is close enough, than they're single, most evil entity in their respective worlds"

"Then let it slip for now" Namine smiled, "Miss Aqua, before she fell asleep, Kairi said she wanted to thank you for giving her the strength"

Aqua smiled softly "If she awake without me being present… please tell her that I just gave her the direction. It's all the strength of her heart"

Outside, the Mayor still screaming and kicking, until Riku knocked some sense into him "Listen, Mayor. Kairi is so exhausted she had to lock herself down, asking her inner partner to take care. She made a sacrifice for us, and she needed that rest badly, physically and mentally. Now would you like to SHUT UP?"

"-Yes" Mayor never feel THIS frightened about Riku. Riku always been THE good boy in his eyes, unlike the rebellious Sora, Sora snorted knowing that Mayor simply doesn't knew about Riku AT ALL.

Sora's father arrived with a bang, despite no less than three butler tried to stop him, they're dragged and tossed around like a ragdoll by the unruly escort man "Mister Sion, you are ESPECIALLY prohibited here-"

"Mayor, we require your presence immediately" he said gruffly, without nonsense in the slightest.

"What? Oh it's just you, Sion. Please let me see Namine for the last time…"

Sora's father simply sling the Mayor easily on his shoulder, he met little to no resistance afterwards. The Mayor does, however, rudely pointed at Sora "I hate you and your dumb mule of a dad"

"You keep telling yourself that, and please apologize if you met a mule" Sora gave him a red eye, he crossed his arms and his face mellowed "But this is serious, I already lock the keyhole just now, but still…"

Riku sat on top of the stair edge aside him, he contemplated what he saw before "Well, that amount of heartless is certainly surprising, not something we can't handle, but neither it's okay for the innocents to be involved"

They knocked the door and Roxas is the one who open it "Namine is sleeping, let's talk outside"

With Aqua in tow, the three teenagers walked, then, Sora made a point that they should just use the oversized balcony, which had a freaking pair of tables and grand total of eight chairs, for tea time.

Kairi might be not that modest, but how RICH is her, only her closest friend knew. Kairi is grateful enough about being raised well, and despise 'wasting' money for trivial stuff, in spite of what her foster father told her.

"Well, one thing shared by princesses of hearts is their recklessness and foolhardiness. Seriously" Sora slumped on the table, constantly sighing.

"Coming from you, that's rich!" Riku deadpanned. "Needless to say, first thing first, Xehanort is back, and that means we're leaving ASAP. But remember, we have that promise with Kairi."

Riku's face darkened for a moment "Question, are we leaving without her, or with her?"

"…now that she had access to the power of Keyblades… it's not an option" Sora stood up, contemplating while looking at the still-busy bystanders "Being a keybearer is suffering"

"Oh, c'mon Sora, you can't be serious!" Roxas groaned and stood up, he's supposed to be the nihilistic one!

Sora's lip stretched wide "Well, I'm not a saint, not even close. But if that means I can protect my beloved, I'll carry that burden to my grave. Bringing Kairi with us, we can protect her, we have the power to do that, didn't we?"

"That's the Sora I knew" the white haired teen punched his shoulder softly, then bumped fist with him "We'll go as soon as Namine ready, she's occupying Kairi's body, who is exhausted after all that crap, we'll pick some necessary supply if we have to"

"And a gummy, don't forget the gummy" Sora added.

"Then it's settled" Mayor kicked the door open, seems displeased "You're going, all of you"

Unsurprisingly, Sora is the one to question his statement "You won't try to stop us from bringing Kairi?"

"What good can that bring, Kid?" Mayor chided "I'm too powerless to protect her; this world is really that huge, eh… so many strong people, and look how Sion become monstrous like that in the span of two years"

Sora took the chance to kick the taller man's shin, much to his anger "What in the damnation are you doing, brat?!"

The heartless boy hissed "C'mon, Kairi won't like that face. If you let her go, at least, say we'll meet again with a smile"

The Mayor's face mellowed slightly when he looked at the determination, and innocence, projected within the boy's eyes. "Sigh, no matter how much I refuse to believe, I always knew…"

"What?"

"Nothing, preparation, preparation"

* * *

Dinner in the Sora's residence is as cheerful as always, despite what happened early in the day.

"So you two are going this soon?" Sion asked rather disappointed, but after a while, a smile not unlike that of his son's is visible again "Great, a man is all about adventure, when adventure ends, THEN it's time to settle down"

"Suure thing" Sora sarcastically said.

"Roxas, please keep Sora from being too reckless okay? Stay safe. You are part of this family; remember to come home when you can"

"But"

"No buts"

"Okay"

"Then, Sora, what is your plan first and foremost?"

"Yum. More like Riku's plan, we'll visit Great Wizard Yen Sid and ask for some help, that's after we got a means to get there" Sora explained, all the while

"Huh. My ship wouldn't be enough?"

"Nope, and even if it can, not fast enough, we need a special type of ship that only King Mickey can provide. He usually use that, but as of now, he's simply using Star Shard, an artifact that send us wherever we want provided that we remember the exact detail of that place"

"Magic, riiiight" the father leered aside in disappointment.

"Seems like Sora's unused clothes is enough for now" his mother muttering while held her cheek, sighing. Roxas seems to prefer long pants too, unlike Sora, who prefer baggy ¾ length for extra freedom "He grew so fast that we didn't realize we pick wrong size"

"I'm happy to hear that, Mom. However, we can't carry too much baggage, so we'll ask the three fairy Godmothers to enchant our clothes. This allow the clothes to repair and clean itself"

Changing size is not within its parameter though, Sora added mentally.

Meanwhile, Riku himself has no problem leaving, his father always out of home, and the same with him, in case of last two years, as the result, Riku simply put something else. Mornign had come, he had too much sleep already, and had stuffed his stomach full. The last thing he want to do, is to write something.

Namely, a journal, Jimminy Cricket had taught him to make one. Riku wrote it in case his father coming home, he will knew where Riku is all the time.

As soon as Riku returned there, he find his father's own journal, and began to write.

Now, he's leaving again, the message had been written, and he was ready. He closed the book and put the pen on his belt's pocket. Aqua already waiting outside, even though she stay in Kairi's, she had nothing else to do, since Namine had yet to awake. She's practically homeless and alone, and moreso than that, bored.

She don't want to disturb Sora's last moment with his family too. So the choice, is to spend with someone that's just like her: Riku, who is all alone. As soon as she got a breakfast, she dashed to the direction of his house, and he's out as well.

"Hope King Mickey realized we need his help" He noted.

"Yes"

* * *

Its seems that their hopes are answered, three hours later, a pair of gummi ship descend from the sky, it's Excalibur* and Highwind to be precise, both of them are accompanied by light teeny ship. Those ship purposefully land on the Destiny Island, rather than the mainland, to avoid unwarranted attention. Needless to say, Island Trio (x2) did notice them earlier than everyone else.

"What the heck was that" Tidus gasped.

"Our ride" Sora crossed his arm proudly "Seems like it's time to say goodbye"

"Aww, and we just met Roxas and Namine too" Selphie pouted "Can't you stay longer?"

Riku wanted to say 'it's too dangerous for all of you', but instead, he opted second choice rather than lying "We need to hurry because someone, somewhere out there, need us, started with King Mickey"

King Mickey, still dressed in modest battle gear, was the first one to run off the stair "Sorry ahm late, hehe"

"What did we miss, wak?" Donald the talking wizard duck and Goofy the warrior dog followed shortly after "Gawrsh, been a long time!"

Sora and Donald hugged Sora "Sora, did you dyed your hair?"

"It's complicated, meet Roxas" Sora pointed Roxas, realization hit Donald like a ton of gummis and he screamed, however, Goofy reacted first and close the duck's bill to shut him out. The grip strength of his hand is nothing to be scoffed off, indeed, as Donald's struggle rendered useless.

"And I'm Namine"

"Ah've heard bout you a lot" King Mickey raised his hand, the blond girl accept it gracefully, while bowed in honor.

"Here's Tidus, Wakka, and Selphie" Sora enthusiastically introduced his friend "Everyone, meet King Mickey and his lackey"

The King Examined them throughout. "You three got potential"

"They regularly fought heartless that naturally born here" Riku added "Each of them could match a Neoshadow one by one"

"Wak! That's quite amazing!" Donald cheered, pulling out a bag "Well, here's some gift for ya"

"What gift?"

Donald gave each of them a piece of shining marbles, "What is that?" Sora asked, feel threatened by it, seemingly familiar and frightening, for some reason.

"It's the residual fragment of the cornerstone, 'at stuff is scattered across Timeless river if ya seek long enough" Mickey explained "They contain a drop amount of power from the cornerstones, and embedding them within our weapon give them anti-heartless properties. We found these when we conduct more expedition in Timeless river"

"So that's why I never heard of that..." Sora mumbled.

"Are you sure we can have this? This look VERY precious" Wakka howled, raised the marble sky high, as the sunlight made it shines even brighter.

"We can always get another" Mickey shrugged "We plan to give this to everyone"

"As in, EVERYONE?" Roxas raised his eyebrow, just how many of that stuff they have? One hundred? Two hundred?

Goofy felt he had to laugh at the boy's confusion "A-hyuk, none of those marbles have equal amount of power, actually, they ARE merely fragments after all. Some of them contain very little amount, but better than nothing, right? Hur-hur"

"D'ese are one of the least powerful marbles, I'm sorry I can't give you the stronger one, wak-wak-wak" Donald added.

"It's okay, at least, let this be a memento that link us together" Tidus raised his marble as well, Selphie followed finally "This is the symbol of our struggle, our friendship"

"Everyone, thank you"

"Oh c'mon, Sora, don't act like we'll never met again!" Tidus raised his fist for Sora to bump with, Sora felt like crying, if only he could.

From afar, their parents waved their hands (and in case of Major, screaming Namine and Kairi's name). Riku's eyes widened, amongst the adults, there's him. A White haired handsome man with very bad state of personal hygiene, covered in dirt and sweat, he simply smiled.

Riku grinned too, seemingly surprised and yet satisfied.

"Also, as I promised Sora, the journal has been magically revised and upgraded so it could connect with any kind of archive, analog or computer" Mickey handed Sora a thick book with oddly sleek cover reminded Sora of stuff in Ansem's computer room. Sora examined it and felt somewhat a close connection with it, and nodded "Thank you. Anyway, who's using the second gummi then?"

"YAHOOO!"

"Oh man" Sora facepalmed as a pair of barely half-a-foot tall squirrels landed right on top of his head "What are you two doing?!"

"Heya Sora, that's not how you greet a longtime friend" the black-nosed one chuckled "Name is Chip"

"And me is Dale" the red-nosed one pointed, it was a moment of silence until Selphie dashed and pick them up, squeeze them on her modest bust and shrieked happily like a little girl "SO CUUUTE~!"

"Oooooh that's dangerous!" Dale exclaimed hysterically, until Chip smack him on the head and said "Unfaithful"

"Chip and Dale, they're Kingdom's employee, not pets" Sora pick the two Squirrel off Selphie's grip, much to Selphie's ire "Oh c'mon, just a little, please~"

"Because I'm a jackass, that puppy little eyes won't work on me, Ha-ha-ha~" Sora mockingly laugh as he walked inside the highwind with chipmunks on his shoulders, Selphie grumbled incoherently before giving up. One by one followed, King Mickey, Donald, Goofy board the Excalibur, whereas Riku, Namine, and Roxas board the Highwind with Sora. Aqua almost board the Kingdom ship... until Sora reminded her about the size comparison and it's only comfortable enough for three people, so Aqua followed the rest to the much-larger Highwind.

The Gummi ships and Teeny escorts began to float slowly, to everyone else's amazement, never they saw a ship of such size can fly like that, in this world, there's only light, fragile looking aircraft, not multicolored flying battle brick.

* * *

-xxxxxxxxxxxxx-

* * *

Looking at the monitor, Namine felt a little gloomy, it was Roxas that cheer her, holding her hand as they depart. They're nobodies, with the fall of Organization, they should be alone. But Sora and Kairi had prevented that, introduced them to many other people.

Once again, they felt what like having something resemble a family.

Sora watched after them from slight distance, true, he was somewhat jealous since it's Kairi's body, but hell, that was his body too. The logic is perfect, right? He had long since stopped thinking about the mind-screwing nature of Nobodies, and saw them as people.

Well, at least those human-like nobodies, because you can't compromise with Dusk and the like and the choices are either to enslave, or to destroy.

Riku of course, realized this and poked the heartless boy "Are you okay with them?"

"Why the hell not? Can't you say romance by proxy?" Sora whispered.

Sora is really a bad liar, and Riku crossed his arm in response "Sora"

"Okay, I AM jealous, but otherwise, no problem, satisfied?"

Riku snorted, Sora responded by a growl. Meanwhile, Aqua examined them carefully and prefer not to say anything.

"Anyway, what's our first objective?" Namine asked as soon as she realized being watched, she look slightly embarrassed at that and quickly released Roxas' hands.

"Yen Sid, obviously" Sora answered "Isn't that true?"

"Correct" Chip raised his paw, then jump into the next console board "His majesty said so"

"Ah, I can't help but think, a year ago, he said that I shouldn't be deceived. Then I found the truth wasn't that simple, and then it got worse, I guess growing up means we always have to choose shades of gray, eh?"

Aqua can support that notion, being good doesn't always means pure and vice versa.

"What do you mean with that?" Roxas asked anxiously, Sora never been too philosophical, at least, not normally. His eyes met Namine's, who avert those a little, adding extra suspicion. In the end though, Sora added "Well, what I can gather, Master Yen Sid is a bit... racy about the existence of Nobody. He said Nobodies only 'pretend' to have emotion and that I shouldn't hold back when fighting the Organizations"

Roxas of course taken aback with that, once again, his fusion with Sora is not perfect and like Sora don't remember parts about Roxas, so is Roxas, he doesn't knew about that conversation, for starter.

"Wartime dehumanization propaganda, as I found. So while it's bad of him to be rude like that, he's not inherently faulty. You know, shell-shocked old veteran often like that"

Roxas thought a little, indeed, most Nobodies not lucky enough to grew their own heart, and putting two and two, and with the situation during that time, Master Yen Sid DOES provide the simplest explanation, however flawed it is. He smiled in the end and decide to tease Sora again instead "Being a heartless made you smart, who could have though?"

Sora simply grinned "No, it just makes me cynical"

* * *

Namine can't help but felt happy that Roxas being wise enough, well, she was angry too, at first. But considering what she had done to Sora, the opinion never been so painfully hit the target. She still haven't forgiven herself about that, despite Sora's insistence.

Sora instead open the book, and he's not surprised when he greeted by his holographic counterpart "[Hi there]"

"Why, hello for you too" Sora said, the holographic avatar tilted his head and then announced "[I don't know if my sensor is a bit faulty but I sense a lot of darkness]"

"Can't you see I AM a heartless now?"

"[Right, where's that entry]" the Sora in the projection summon something, it's digital copy of Jiminy's old journal, and he use that to symbolizing that he's browsing the real journal's content "[Vanitas, sure thing]"

"Who is that?" Namine asked.

Sora raised the jounal so his friends can examine it more closely "Meet Data-Sora, he helped us sorting the wrecked journal... the information there is messed up back then"

Surprisingly, Namine was the one said "Sorry"

"Why? Is that your fault somehow?" Riku raised his eyebrow.

"You see, my memory-altering power also affect physical object. For starter, I changed Kairi's Wayfinder to suit my own imagining, it's not surprising if I somehow destroy that journal too, since it contain so much information about Sora's adventure"

"[Like memories though, Data doesn't magically fix itself, what could be said as 'broken data', or 'bugs', appear and interferes with the journal's restoration]" Data-Sora shown the 'snapshot' of his own adventure to them "[And so, I was awakened accidentally as proxy for that task]"

"Where Namine fix her mistake with people's memories, you fix what's she missed" Roxas clenched his fist "That's awesome of you"

"[Nah, that's the meaning of my existence anyway, currently I'm existing not unlike Tron, I kept the Journal like he's keeping Ansem's computer]"

"So humble of you, unlike certain someone we knew" Riku scoffed.

Sora realized everyone's eyes set on him as Riku said that, "What? Why all of you look at me like that?"

"Noothing~" Everyone decided to avert their gaze, made Sora even less patient.

"Anyway, in that case, can I ask you for help?" Namine clapped her hands, begging "Please?"

"[As long as it's within my capability, sure thing" Data Sora answered without hesitation "[What do you want me to do?]"

"I need the information about certain someone, I''m gathering everyone's collective memories and see if we can remember this missing person"

Data-Sora rubbed his chin as silence filled the room, only buttons and pulleys operated by Chip and Dale is heard, finally, Data-Sora decided "[Let's see, I'll call them first]"

"Them?"

Roxas and Namine also materialize from the journal "Oh man, that's the Data-me? Awesome!" Roxas exclaimed.

"[We're born when real-me tried to fix the memories of real Sora]" Data-Namine waved her hand "[Hi]"

"Say, I wonder if you know about a girl in black cloak?" Namine asked.

Data-Roxas and Data-Namine looked at each other, before raised their hand. Data-Sora summoned his Keyblade and raised it as well "[Your finger please]"

Namine extended her index finger close to the mini-projection of their data selves, and a tiny ball of data formed between them, absorbed through Namine's fingertip. Information flew magically into her mind, and one more clue is gathered "Xion..."

"Who?"

"Xion! Her name is Xion!" Namine shouted, grabbing Roxas impatiently, so much that he lose his balance and made Namine straddle on top of him "Do you remember?"

Roxas fell into silence "I seem to remember that, yeah... but... there's still something that's missing. I am very sure that She, I, and Sora is related"

"Vouching for that here" Riku pointed, he seems to have experience meeting her as well, not sure when or where though.

"Axel" Sora noted "It has to be him, you said about you, Axel, and this person... then it means the last clue would be with Axel"

"[As for how you remember her...]" Data Sora use his keyblade again, this time to create another entry. It's another girl with Kairi's exact facial shape, and about the same age as Namine now. The only real difference, is that she had black hair like Sora is now. She's wearing organization's black cloak, and holding Kingdom Key in her left hand.

"[Well, Xion as all of us remember her, but she's still far from complete, even though we only need Axel]" Data-Roxas sighed.

Data-'Xion' look confused, and she could only say "[Roxas...?]"

"[It's okay, you need to rest]" Data-Namine held the newly born Data person's free hand and both of them disappear, Data-Roxas followed moments later.

"[As she's still unstable and incomplete, we'll need to froze her until the information of her is completed, so as to reduce the chances of bug occurring]" Data-Sora explained "[Believe me, seeing a friend corrupted by bugs is painful, it's like watching your friend tempted by Darkness. No offense, Riku]"

"None Taken" the white haired teen lightly said.

Namine gloomily removed herself from Roxas, much to his (and Sora's) relief "That makes sense, still I can't help but feel sad"

"...Data can have hearts, but even then, there's always that little limitation when comparing them to real life: dynamics. While they will never feel the true happiness, that means they're protected form the truest sadness" Sora said "The more you think, the more you realize that the world is always try to balance itself despite people's mistakes breaking things up"

"And we'll go to restore that balance as much as we could" Aqua, after spending so long being silent like a statue whilst listening to everyone's conversation, finally spoke "As soon as we meet this Master, we'll talk about Kairi's training... oh, and you too, Namine"

"Me?" Namine pointed herself, everyone nodded "Oh Come on, do I LOOK like fit to be a fighter?"

"Unless you find power on your own... you will have to use Kairi's, you know... I knew I'll protect you no matter what but I can't help being worry if you really THAT helpless" Roxas scratched his head.

"Believe me, I will. If Kairi can find her own strength, sure thing, I can do that too" Namine said without doubt, she had faith in her inherent ability to manipulate memories, and while she had yet to use that in battle due to the energy requirements, she think something else will born out of it, and that will be her new power.

* * *

The situation in the Kingdom ship is more or less calm, borderline boring, as Donald began to quack and cowl, whilst controlling the ship.

"Ahyuk, Donald, remember that the gummi run on smiling face" Goofy said with a very lighthearted tone. The wizard duck just hissed "Aw, shut up, everyone knew it's a lie"

"Ah knew you're bored but we'll met them again in the Tower, not like we'll spend little time there, to be honest" King Mickey pat his shoulder, though he had understand why Donald look distressed.

"I knew, your Majesty"

But that's about it, Donald still grumbling uncontrollably.

Between individual duty and wish, Donald is the most conflicted of them all.

"[Testing, testing, this is Sora and Highwind]"

"SORA!"

If it was real Sora, Donald probably KISSED him, well, not quite. But the happiness is crystal clear.

"[I'm quite sorry that stuff happened without you knowing, it's quite ironic is it? Me as heartless]"

Seeing the usual worried expression of him, Donald let a loud laugh "Awk, c'mon, it's not like you're secretly one of Xehanort's pawn"

The King stiffened, and it was Goofy who reminded him "Careful with that, hyuk. We now Xehanort can do anything, and ah mean ANYTHING, okay?" the concern on Goofy's voice is far from unreasonable indeed,

Donald coughed, and finally mellowed at last "Fine, then. Just... careful okay? The darkness strike when you don't see them"

"[Of course!]" Sora grinned, "[Say, how was Daisy?]"

"You HAVE to believe it, I mean, WAK! She's really-"

King Mickey decided it's best to retire to his room, he had stuff to think about, from the training and all that, to the journey schedule as well as war preparation. This journey will be harder than ever, at least, Master yen Sid had predicted so, and while his fortune never 100% accurate, it never actually missed the essentials.

He put out his pendulum, revealing Minnie's face engraved in it. He smiled and put it back under his shirt, with people precious for him around, like Sora and Riku, he is strong. And even when he's defeated and fell into despair, his friends will be there to save him.

He will atone for his mistake, he WILL save everyone, and he will never regret when he failed because he knew he had tried enough.

* * *

**Not much can be say this time, next time: Yen Sid.**


	4. Story 3: Belief

**Ookay, so in the making of this chapter I went to several forums and watched some KH video…**

**Needless to say I was pretty conflicted with all the possible pairings I have in mind. In true _Kingdom Hearts_ fashion though, the line between familial, platonic and romantic love is frustratingly blurry, so it's still a matter of debate in general. So you can expect crack pairings and ship-branching abound, even if they're short-lived.**

**(At least Sora-Kairi will be fixed OTP; likewise, canon couples will remain undisturbed ^_^)**

**This chapter is more like a filler, there's limited amount of plot development, but at least the interaction are meaningful, I think =_=  
**

**If you have any thought of this (or anything about this fic) please don't be too stingy to share. Review. XD**

* * *

**Kingdom Hearts III**

**-Essentially Embedded Existence-**

Disclaimer:

Square Enix

Disney

And everyone else!

* * *

**_Chapter 3: _**_雛菊_ - **_Belief_**

* * *

King Mickey woke up as he felt the ship is shaking heavily, and realized the possible implications. Journey to Mysterious tower took roughly 48 hours; it's no wonder that there will be some bumps and accident, namely, heartless attacks.

And boy he's right, he found Donald is screaming as he maneuvered the ship skillfully, though he has little doubt no one can be as good as Cid. "MAN THE GUN, WAAAK!"

King Mickey complied, and it's seems Goofy just woke up as well, so Goofy took of the gun station and began aiming. Three extended burst from fire cannon took out a flight of Heartless' smaller ship "Man down, ho-ho-ho-hoy!"

King Mickey took over the homing thunder weapon instead, shining ray curving, guiding itself toward several ship and shattered some, damaging the others with the fragments as well.

It was Highwind that finally took the cake, seeing as it's more heavily armed than Kingdom model. Its teeny escorts began to maneuver on its own, acting as mobile battery.

"In the nick of time"

"[Sorry we late, your majesty]" Dale reported, "[It took time for us to choose the best personnel]"

Highwind's slash gummy activated and sliced through much larger heartless ship without effort, shattering it into trillion pieces of gummies. "[Nice job Sora]" Chip exclaimed.

Banking and slashing through more of the enemy's battlefleet, they valiantly fought. While their ship tends to be small end, they make it up with excellent quality compared to that of Heartless' ships.

But even then, number does have its own advantages; it's really hard for Roxas to maneuver since it's REALLY his first time doing this by his own. Chip and Dale wouldn't trust Sora for some unknown reason, and Riku refused. In the end, Roxas is the helmsman, and Chip and Dale man the teeny control system instead. Riku and Sora took the control of the weapon.

"I guess we women should stay on the backseat huh? Lame" Namine sighed.

Aqua sweatdropped "Would YOU like to sat there wondering what to do?"

"Nope"

"Then it's decided, we'll just have to trust the young sailors"

Roxas finally snaps as another explosion occurring right under the ship, throwing everyone not braced properly "I can't stand it anymore! Can't we just, you know, ask Data-Sora to do it?"

"Oh, believe my complaint when I said Gummy control system is very outdated, you HAVE to see the engine maintenance room" Sora chided

Chip warned "But then you had to remember, Gummi ships is basically ethereal jelly bricks slapped together and see what works, each of the modules need its own control, we managed to make a rudimentary autopilot and monitoring system for extended travel but-"

"Can't you just… you know, use SINGLE computer and add extra tidbits such as integrated software for multiple modules?" Namine asked.

"Soft-whatever!"

Sora slammed the journal to the nearby port, and miraculously, it fit somehow, made its own connection.

"[Software means a program designed for certain purpose. In this case, Namine means a program that can be used to make gummy controls simpler]" Data-Sora popped out "[I can do that if there's a central computer in this junk, unfortunately, all of console are analog, even the autopilot system is barely more advanced than elaborated clockwork mechanism. The only thing with complete electricity is the navigational mapping, communication and sensor]"

"And they managed to create a journal that can connect with anything electronic, brilliant" Sora screamed "I'm so going to ask Cid!"

Roxas kicked the throttle pedal hard, and the ship jerked twice while evading a bullet hell in the process. "Did I do that right?"

"More or less, pull that pulley there to roll!" Dale commanded, and as Roxas did it. Everything turned upside down for a moment as the ship roll twice to evade another assault.

"You've got talent, Kid" Chip shouted.

"Gee, thanks"

Finally, they managed to eradicate the whole armada of heartless ship; Roxas slumped on the floor, leaving the Gummy ship autopilot to take control again as soon as Chip connect the gears and adjusted the coordinates.

"That's really exciting, REALLY" he muttered sarcastically "Say, I can see why Donald always been grumpy"

"You haven't seen me driving, bro" Sora patted his head "Say, anything on the sensor then?"

"Nope" Riku told him.

"[How was the condition there, Sora?]" Donald' face popped on the monitor

Data-Sora projected himself again, this time right in the monitor "[damage hardly breaching 20% mark and no vital component, how about you?]"

"[Mostly untouched too, thanks to the fact that the heartless is more eager attacking your ship, ho-ho]" Goofy explained "[His majesty's prediction wasn't wrong at all]"

The more wielders gathered in one place, the worse indeed.

"I wonder if everyone going to yen Sid's place is a good idea" Riku sighed.

* * *

Excalibur landed first and foremost, followed by Highwind. All the passengers, minus Chip and Dale, touch the soil after spending two days and two nights in the lanes, even though the distance so to speak is rather narrow in itself.

Destiny Island is located south of Radiant Garden, and after Twilight town there are secret lanes went to Mysterious tower. Destiny Island to Twilight Town is **at most** 12 hours if using Cruise mode, and 4 hour at maximum speed; it wasn't called 'Mysterious' for nothing, finding a route to Yen Sid's place is like riding a rollercoaster.

Mickey said yen Sid put his damnedest at moving the (admittedly tiny) world to prevent the same foolish situation with Pete happened again.

Sora wanted to visit the town at first, but King Mickey said it's unwise and Yen Sid takes priority, so he refrains from talking about that again. In truth, he's doing that for the sake of Roxas, and Namine to an extent.

"Last time I'm here, Yen Sid taught Kairi basic of magic from the ground"

Unlike Sora, Kairi prefer to study form the very foundation, and such, her practical performance only increased slowly over the course of three months. Then again, if it wasn't for that, Kairi won't be able to use that apocalyptic attack in the island, or gaining her own style for that matter.

Granted, it didn't go as smooth as Aqua hoped. But still, now everyone knew not to scoff with Princess of Light. When Kairi proceed with her accelerated training, things will go boom for sure.

"Did he say anything about Kairi being a key bearer?" Sora asked curiously, Kairi never talk about it much, and they never actually spar too.

"Merryweather said Kairi always been the magic caster type, like Donald is. All yen Sid said is Kairi's power" Namine told him "I don't know about myself, but honestly, with Master Yen Sid Like that, doubtful that I'll receive meaningful help"

"That would be foolish. I knew that old wizard is too blunt sometimes, but he's not called the great master for nothing" Sora shook his head.

"The darkness got you deeper than we expect" Donald crossed his arms, err, wings. He squeezed his eyes angrily, feeling insulted.

"Oh c'mon, we're not going to put with honor before reason crap again, don't we?" Sora complained "I understand his reason doesn't mean I'm not angry for his action you know"

"WAK! Then stop preaching philosophical stuff, you sounded like Xehanort more and more, gosh. The Sora I knew always be straightforward and true to his heart"

"Then I should support his opinion, riiight~"

"THAT WASN'T WHAT I MEANT! WAAAAAAAAAAK!"

"Careful with that conversation, you two" Goofy reminded them again, they went into awkward silence afterward. Walking through all the stairs silently, the large group finally arrived in Yen Sid's room, who is a bit cramped already due to the multitude of books, and now it has no less than eight people barging in.

"We come as you told us" Everyone bowed, and only Sora hesistate at first, but he did anyway.

"Just like the stars had informed me, the readings turn out so unpredictable that I almost gave up. I'm glad I manage in the end" the old wizard waved his hand to order everyone to be at ease "The wheel of destiny accelerated almost beyond my capacity to observe"

Started with Sora turning into heartless and got worse… that much Yen Sid already knew. However, the presence of Namine and Roxas intrigued him through and through, even though he had heard this from Mickey few days ago.

The girl in particular seems to be a little restless when she realized being observed.

"… There's only so much knowledge that people can unravel, mortal or otherwise. Even some of the so called Gods… in the end, we can only guess the secret of the world, and often caught by surprise instead"

"I said the likes of you don't have emotion, but you grew a heart on your own effort. I said the likes of you wasn't accepted by darkness or light, but people's hearts had accepted your presence wholly. For that, I admitted my mistake and apologize"

Complicated talk aside, King Mickey smiled. Yen Sid had apologized, and that seems to make the three abnormal teen satisfied, and Donald smiled proudly like there's no tomorrow.

"As we continue… Sora, do you realize the risk of succumbing into darkness like that?"

Sora gulped a little, he already has an answer in mind, Riku and Aqua should know that already. The most despair-inducing part is not him berserking around trying to corrupt everyone.

"The worst case is Xehanort taking over, using me as his vessel… striking when we aren't expecting him. He already did that with Terra, Riku though temporarily, and maybe more"

The old wizard stared right into his eyes, mostly unmoving because of his blazing determination "Indeed, you seem to realize that"

"I have some very nasty idea to prevent that from happening, includes being 'killed' by my own friends, but for now, I'll just use this form to bolster our manpower"

"Are you aware that you are capable of being the biggest thorn in our sides, and capable of jeopardizing the balance even further?"

"Master, that-" King Mickey interfered as he felt his old master taking it too far, but surprisingly it was Riku, Donald and Goofy who stopped him.

"I prefer to believe myself, and trust my friend"

For the rare occasion since forever, Yen Sid smiled and nodded. When it comes to Sora, his prediction can only go so far, and the villains might be the same too. Sora had proven that he's able to save the world twice, why not the third time?

And even if he failed, he will not go down in regret, for his friend will carry his effort further. That lack of common sense is also one of Sora's greatest strength.

"My vision this time will hold true then, I'll grant you the strength to resist the darkness and withstand the power of light… but it'll come with a cost"

"What IS the cost?" Sora eagerly asked; if yen Sid had trusted him, then it'll be smoother.

Yen Sid said "To reject everything means you will have nothing, rejecting light and darkness made you a void entity. You can't cast offensive spell, but at the same time is resistant to their main effect. If you try to cast one, it'll empower you directly instead"

"That means whatever magic attack I experience will be dampened and turned into physical damage" Sora muttered, seems like a fair tradeoff "What can you say, pal?"

"It's your choice, Sora" Riku nodded "Remember Sora, heartless heal fast, true, but they also inherently fragile because they are physical manifestation of darkness, not a solid flesh and bone. There's a valid reason why many of Xehanort's artificial heartless wore heavy armor"

"He looked at everyone and decided "I'll pay for this aren't I?"

Roxas made a fist signal "_Go for it_" indeed. Mickey, Donald, and Goofy shrugged. It was then Namine who pulled him back "Sora, what about Kairi? She deserves to know"

Sora's face went blank for a while, true, there might be problem with that. But it's not like most heartless are immune to magic to begin with, now, Light and Darkness is the priority.

"Tell Kairi I'm sorry" he said, before delivering a smile. Not a cocky or sarcastic grin even, it's true, honest to god appreciation.

"Walk into that door, you cannot return"

"Sure, sure"

* * *

Sora's presence disappeared beyond the door, leaving Namine still worried, Riku comes to ease her by saying "Don't worry, Yen Sid won't allow us in total disadvantage right?"

"The diverse kind of skill is what we need; each and every Keybearer is unique as they grew. With different power gathered, you'll be able to fight in many kind of situation, supporting each other" Yen Sid confirmed, he then switch his attention to Aqua "It's my honor to meet you directly, Great Master Yen Sid" she bowed politely

"Ah, if it's Eraqus' prized pupil… long time no see"

"Not quite as long for me, being stranded deep in the darkness" she shook her head, Yen Sid must be being polite anyway.

"And yet, you came out untouched, such distilled purity in a heart can only be found in one in a million" Yen Sid waved his hand "Only those with unshakable determination can do that"

"I lost my two friends in the tragedy that happened twelve years ago, and my goal is to save them" Aqua nodded.

"Such a selfish, yet noble goal. Power of friendship, like love, is the strongest drive in the realm of light. Hearts are connected, made each of them stronger. Never forget that"

"Yes"

Sora left the chamber, dressed in virtually same clothes. For some unknown reason, he has even bigger emblem on his back now, though it was compensated by the fact that he regained his signature crown-shaped necklace.

Of course, for his friends, the most noticeable part is that he lost his yellow eye, the black hair still there though.

"Sora, your eyes-" Goofy bit his hand, it wasn't as beautiful as Namine/Kairi, Roxas, or even Riku's blue eyes, but it's now blue, regardless.

"Magic lens, yellow is cool, but it remind me too much of Xehanort" Sora grinned "They have no means of changing the hair though, so I left them like this rather than bother them with extra job"

"So you can resist darkness now?"

"Yeah, the fairies told me they have some research with Orgy XIII's black cloak"

"Orgy?" Namine tilted her head confusingly, when she looked at Roxas, Roxas almost popped his eyes and pointing at Sora accusingly "Damn it Sora… that was the second time..."

"Rest assured, they now can make our clothes dark-resistant, and it doesn't have to be full-body, even the hood is optional!"

"But Sora, you spend a lot of time in Castle Oblivion as heartless too, so why the hair and eyes?" Donald quite honestly asked. The changes of appearance still odd for him, even though he not changing at all is even weirder, it actually happened as Donald described.

"Mind you, I WASN'T affected by darkness back then, at least, not as much as I am now, because I have Kairi's heart for a while before turned into Heartless. Besides, maybe I have this form because of Vanitas' leaked memories and felt his suffering" the heartless teen shrugged. Memories are just that unpredictable… "Oh, and I and Roxas wasn't separated as heartless as nobodies and heartless exclusively back there in castle oblivion, we literally split in half, only Roxas has no heart while I DO"

"That's an acceptable explanation, ah-yuk" goofy nodded "At least you can use Dyes as excuse"

"Sure thing"

Roxas and Namine walked out of the Fairy's room, Roxas wore the same outfit he had in fake Twilight Town. Meanwhile, Namine wore the same kind of clothes as Kairi is, only color inverted to white outer skirt and pink halter top. She also gained hip-length black spandex for extra modesty.

Riku's clothes, besides the new, less baggy jeans, didn't get that much of an alteration either, only minor placement of the yellow trimming.

Then Mickey, Donald, and Goofy walked out of the room. Sora almost FREAK OUT.

"The hell is that?"

Mickey dressed in the same outfit, only with Final Form's color scheme. Donald's HAT becomes much larger than before, and pointy, like most wizard hat is his… clothes also noticeably thicker and baggier. Then there's goofy, whose left side is almost completely armored (at least, the upper body is), and rather than funny round hat, is using a knight's helmet.

"I miss these clothes" Mickey smiled.

"Ah, that…" Aqua muttered "That's the outfit you wore years ago"

"Indeed"

"Who knew Goofy can look this hardcore back then" Sora chided and grab the dog-man and shake him "But of course, he's a knight captain, right~"

Goofy looked down at Donald, who just made a neck-slicing gesture. Goofy slammed his helmet to Sora's face, sending him two steps away.

"What's that for"

"Just a test, but really, the way you spoke is disrespectful. Wak-wak-wak" Donald held his stomach as he saw the boy's surprised expression.

"Okay, I'm sorry, just that the new… I mean old designs are cool" Sora checked IF his nose got sliced or fractured, nothing bad happened, thankfully. It's not Goofy if he did that out of malice.

"Anyway, if you don't realize" Goofy told them, he pushed the button of his pauldron and instantly, all those reinforcement tidbits disappear "This clothes works like keyblade armor, only less physical, ahyuk"

Roxas did a double take on that "You all CAN revert?"

Donald chuckled "It's not like we'll walk in broad daylight wearing battle gear right? They enhance our battle capabilities sure, but too outlandish for everyday journey"

Goofy and Donald had changed into their more casual clothes, while Mickey… not like the model is any different though, but it returned to its original coloring.

"To be fair, none of our clothes can evolve, except mine, it's ALREADY evolved as you can see… he's already on the peak of my abilities and has little room to develop" King Mickey smiled "It's time for you, new generations, to shine"

"Oh c'mon, don't talk like an old man" Sora complained.

"Hush, that's rude" Roxas elbowed him.

"All of you will eventually had access to stronger form, and that, is the purpose of executing your mission. Especially you, Namine" Aqua said.

"Me?"

"I can see it from your eyes, you wished for power as well, right?"

"To be honest, yes" Namine looked at her own appearance, inch by inch, it's only a variation of Kairi's, which means she had yet to access her own true potential "Not that I didn't believe the potential of Keyblade, it's just that…"

She summoned Destiny embrace, but rather than Aqua's sword or Kairi's new spear, it's actually shorter than most keyblade. Every single keybearer there felt something lack as well.

"This is not the projection of my heart. My link with this keyblade is weak as you might realize"

"You had to trust your heart then, but for now, you must manage with that power entrusted by Kairi, either until her awakening, or until you gain the kind of strength you wished" the taller woman put her hand on Namine's head gently "Don't worry, I promise you'll manage"

"Yes"

* * *

-xxxxxxxxxxxxx-

* * *

Beneath the mysterious tower, apparently an arena has been constructed. Not as massive as the coliseum (both of them) in Herc's world of course, but it's more than enough for multisession sparring of everyone.

Roxas and Sora charged toward King Mickey full speed, and then it's clear that Sora is faster than anyone in that place when it comes to raw sprint. Keyblade clashed; Sora clenched his fist and deliver a powerful punch, the keyblade master playfully evade it by bend his body aside then kick Sora's arm away, being much smaller did help.

Then come Roxas, unleashing both Kingdom key and Oblivion toward him, instead, Aqua zipped and intercepted him by stabbing Master Keeper to the ground, effectively.

"Careful there"

She was caught off guard… only apparently, because she evaded subsequent ambush by Riku by doing one hand-stand with one arm (on top of the keyblade, at that), backhanding Roxas away with the other one. The teen winced and found that Aqua don't even put effort in that, only the mental shock.

Riku then found himself wrestled by a talking mouse barely one fifth his own mass, one can express their disbelief, but King Mickey wasn't a master keybearer for nothing. What Mickey lack in body strength, he compensated by extreme nimbleness and sharpened technique.

King Mickey use his blade to dampen Sora's kick, but Roxas added even more weight and easily thrown the two feet tall mouse away.

"Strange, I found fighting Xehanort wasn't this hard" Sora wiped his lip.

"We didn't fight two master who work together as good as them" Riku made a beautiful swing on his leg, landed perfectly aside them.

It was strange, Aqua and Mickey only said they fought together once, and yet their subsequent footwork (extremely tight placed) is so harmonic it's unfair. All three young keybearer unable to pierce their defense at all, and when they do, it's a purposefully made trap.

"Well, what if we tried Session… with three people" Roxas said "Don't worry, I have seen it enough to remember the pattern"

"Let's try with four" finally (though unexpected), the sole girl amongst the youngsters stepped in, Sora and Roxas widened, one is happy and the others aren't.

"Kairi, you have returned!"

"Sure thing, I can't sleep forever you know!" Kairi winked, unleashing her keyblade "Bear in mind, I can't go toe to toe in close combat against them, not even close"

"Well, let's see if you can catch up by other means" Riku smirked, and they began to…. Dance.

"Hey, it's the island's ritual dance!" Roxas jawdropped "What are you thinking? This is no time for folk dance!"

"Think smart, I am THE heartless" Sora said mockingly.

"Hey" Roxas elbowed him in response, and then he froze and continued with sarcastic tone "Slang privilege, right… anyway, I know, you know, I know. Nobody is smarter period"

Roxas and Sora joined it, clapping hands and step around with extremely rigid interval, made Aqua and Mickey confused.

Then the masters also realized.

Sora and roxas stepped out fist of the column and attacking so low their keyblade almost graze the floor. Riku and kairi flew and attack with light and dark bullets from above. Attacked from both direction, the masters reacted with Aqua crouch and letting Mickey stood on top of her back and deflecting the bullet, where she hold Roxas and Sora in a match of strength.

Alas, as strong as she is, matching two boys into their early adulthood is not really that wise, and she knew, she just bought extra time for Mickey.

Nevertheless, Mickey is surprised when the two boys emulated Aqua's feat and kicked him squarely on the face. Kairi rolled aside and aimed her keyblade, this time in spear form.

Sora and Roxas pushed themselves away from their keyblades, letting a blast of light taking them out, hopefully along with aqua in the process.

Aqua frantically dodged, but not before she realized Riku is waiting with fist aimed right on her gut.

Aqua coughed, but not letting the (mostly ignorable) pain stop her and she retaliated. And thankfully, Mickey is back… with a headbutt right on Riku's jaw.

"Riku!"

King Mickey display that being a lightweight has its merits and display extreme speed easily comparable to that of heartless Sora in straight path. Mickey wasn't even running by technicality, he done a series of powerful rapid jump.

In no time, he took two unprepared teen just as quick due to Aqua distracted them, as the three boys began their recovery; they found Kairi is in the mercy of Master Keeper.

"That's enough" Mickey smiled "That's quite interesting combo you have there… you use the dance to create a rhythm"

"Yeah but far from perfect, it's not like we can pull moves out of pocket and made it always work" Sora grinned.

"Well, that happened when you have lots of experience" Aqua nodded "Besides, I notice that only Kairi got her basic proper"

While Aqua took no time subduing Kairi, she already noticed form the few parry Kairi done to her attack.

"Well, I trained under Master Yen Sid and doing all from the foundation"

"I found it's hard to follow the basic when I'm this accustomed to random hack and slash… I mean technique I develop"

Self-taught, Sora and Riku went into their journey without being taught proper swordmanship, the real battle experience they had is with other island youth, barely more threatening than children game. Afterward, it's exactly what Sora said.

Roxas possessed similar base technique with Sora, but at larger scale, it's still different due to Roxas' experience with Organization XIII, and the fact that he's dual wielding.

Two years fighting relentlessly using that method, teaching the basic is waste of effort.

In contrast, people like her, Ven, Terra, Mickey, and as of now, Kairi, learned the basic first and hone it as they develop their own style through real time battle.

Yen Sid nodded in satisfaction as Kairi managed to hold herself against three (simulated) shadows with her keyblade alone, as he specifically noted her not to rely on her light power this time. Kairi got the basic stance to the nth degree; she only needs to build up her own technique form there.

Kairi express a little discontent, however remembering Aqua disabled her in five second flat (without even trying), she find her weakness is more obvious than it should be.

Heck, Donald as of now proved that HE, A WIZARD can hold his own with magic staff better than she is, fighting a Neoshadow calmly and whack it so hard it disappear (and when it miss when he went for the second one, a small crack is formed on the floor).

A Wizard is inherently fragile, but that doesn't mean they couldn't hit hard. That's what muscle-enhancing spell is for.

"What's wrong Kairi, you're the one with sword" the duck asked her teasingly, she wasn't angry in the slightest and just laugh and they continue to mop the simulated enemies.

"Donald" Yen Sid threw a rapier, that went straight and stab the floor aside the duck. Understanding the implication, Donald threw aside his staff and plucked out the thin sword and began to fight using it instead, and Kairi is simply speechless, amazed at his skill.

Donald wouldn't be as good as the King, not even close, but Donald will have a field day fighting her other friends, Tidus for example.

Meanwhile, Goofy is training with Riku, deflecting his attack while occasionally countering with shield trick.

"I don't know Donald can use rapier" Riku smashed Goofy away, but the dog man doesn't even flinch. Goofy pluck another rapier and began to fight Riku in close quarter, this time offensively, as he can alternate between using shield and the rapier freely "What? You too?"

"Ho-ho, long before King Mickey train with Yen Sid and even before he married Her Highness Queen Minnie, we all knew as 'the Magnificent Three Musketeers'"

Riku managed to swipe away Goofy's rapier, but Goofy did the same using his shield. Granted, Riku can call his keyblade on a whim, but goofy interfered by using his shield boomerang style. By the time Riku call it, Goofy already pick his rapier and catch the returning boomerang.

"As you could see, our skill is rusty as we learn our specialization. We felt using two weapon like this is redundant and left the path of swordmanship like, three or four years ago… I think"

"Counting with our journey with Sora, six years" Donald interjected as he kick a simulated heartless to his direction, effectively stopping Riku for a moment as the heartless vaporized midair.

Mickey, Sora, and Roxas prefer to be idle as they watched the four training

"Part of the 'sacrifice' isn't it?" Sora asked.

"Maybe yes, but not as absurd as that" Mickey replied, knowing Sora "They simply out of shape, and we're too old to have much room to develop"

"Here we go again" Sora said annoyed.

"When you're close to half a century old you'll understand" the king laughed.

When Kairi had to fight larger heartless, she simply switched into her spear form and charging it like a cavalry. Each of her step done carefully, delivering attack to vital place using her entire body weight for extra push.

While she was nowhere as fast as Aqua, Sora, or even Roxas, her speed was quite good. She also made some… interesting moves, using her spear as leverage so she could bash the heartless right on it's head later.

Donald tried his best to be a good distraction, and considering how motor-billed he is and the speed of his stabbing barrage, he succeeded. In fact, while not as fast in running, he could very much matching King Mickey in ability to evade attacks.

Seeing the Heartless slowing down as it's been weakened greatly, Kairi threw her keyblade spear like a harpoon, after embedding some magic in it, stabbing through its armor like butter. The heartless vaporize into fake darkness; Kairi recalled her weapon again and skillfully spun it, satisfied.

"Twenty second wak!"

They made a high five.

"That's enough for now you two" Yen Sid clapped "You made quite a progress, Kairi"

"Thanks to him" Kairi hugged Donald like a plushy, which, of course offend him greatly, and he quickly struggled to get away "And you, master"

"And the way you held that spear is even more intriguing" Yen Sid told her, quite straightly, but between the boys and middle-aged Disney castle resident, one of them ought to catch the innuendo.

Surprisingly, Sora breaks into laughter; Riku and Roxas both dope slapped him hard enough to send his face to the floor, and he's still giggling at that.

Aqua quite confused as why the three boys are restless for some reason, while King Mickey put a palm on his mouth, holding his chuckles.

"Yes, we girls are taught pole technique at school, unfortunately, I'm so focused on being a Keybearer that I forgot"

"Diversity in skill can be good or bad" Yen Sid waved his hand "Just believe your heart"

Kairi bowed formally and letting her weapon disappear.

Meanwhile, Sora had recovered from his own misery and sat on the railing, replied Kairi's waving hand while smiling innocently.

"Dude, a dirty joke from you of all people?" Roxas sheeshed.

"Following my instinct" the heartless pointed his chest.

"Careful there, Darkness is addictive" Riku warned, he couldn't really blame Sora for his mind but it was his acts and mood shifts that had been ridiculous "On that topic, your excuse does makes sense"

"How exactly? That's outside logic" Roxas gawked.

Sora chuckled "Remember the topic about me eating, heartless follow their instinct, but because we don't have body, we don't exactly have NEEDS, we simply wanted it and if our willpower is strong enough we can just supress that… you know the rest-"

Roxas screamed in realization "EW! I don't want to think!"

"Think hard, you will never find it anyway if you solely depend on your logic" Sora mockingly noted, Roxas angrily shouted "Hey, that's racist. My heart haven't yet to develop in case you know"

"Nobody please? That's the point, being touchy feely with Namine, you don't feel you want to, it's your body demand it, and feeling pleasant as the result" Sora said "Because until now, I am 90% of your Id and half of your Ego"

Roxas blushed, it was new to him. Sure thing, he knew he needed Namine, he knew he couldn't be separated from her, but like what Sora said it's more about that his body told him. The feeling of love, not only he unable to comprehend it, but he just feel it as hollow, he feel like it's a spoonful cream trying to fill a small bowl.

And he felt disturbed by that fact.

"Man, being incomplete sure is hard… when you said like that its sound like I'm more perverted and shallow than you"

"Human nature, don't diss it" Riku told him "As long as you're not giving up you'll be eventually"

"Ah yeah" Roxas vividly remember some of Sora's leaked memories, including that of Riku. Riku always compete for Kairi's attention, but now the winner is clear, besides, Riku had given up that like, two years ago.

So Riku at least has experienced teenage love of some sort, with all the hormone and hijink, possibly. Roxas felt determined that if he couldn't bear this, he don't deserve fighting Xehanort.

Anyway. the winner is so obnoxiously oblivious it annoyed Roxas himself. Sora jumped down innocuously and having a chitchat with Kairi, and now Aqua understood. Sora and Kairi alternates between friendzoning and flirting with each other, how they managed to do that, Aqua honestly don't know.

"So you're satisfied with that, let' see..." Roxas rubbed his hand cunningly, with evil intention drawn on his face, Riku took few step aside not wanting to be involved in Roxas' possibly insane schemes "Oh C'mon"

"Status quo, pal" Riku shook his head "No breaking the dynamic, nothing, let that sink if it have to"

"Not fun, I want to observe that kind of love too!"

"You're just too anxious, if Sora had to be believed, you could just ask Megara, Hercules' girlfriend"

"Wait, Hercules? Dating?" Aqua smiled.

Riku raised his eyebrow in response. "Pardon?"

"Hey, I'm an old maid, I'm curious too"

Riku flabbergasted with how lively she is suddenly, for a reason he don't know, but her private life shouldn't concern him so he wouldn't try to dig. Roxas also seems to be curious too, though he remembered quite a lot.

"He's also a full fledged hero now" Sora landed... with Kairi glomping on his back angrily... okay not quite angrily, more like halfway between annoyed and trying to annoy Sora as retaliation due to her usage of light power. Sora collapsed and his hands slammed the floor multiple times while screaming "I won't repeat it I swear, gimme a break! Time out!"

Kairi stood up, satisfied. Kairi might be pure at heart, but she's also a sadist by nature...

Aqua nodded "About time I see"

She wondered what happened with Zack, oh well it's not like they share something truly special (at least she thought so), but even then doesn't mean they're no longer acquaintances... right?

* * *

**Oh Aqua, poor girl couldn't catch a break. =_=;**

**Zack... well, I honestly don't know, he might be alive, dead, or inbetween as far as canon concerned. I might have some original ideas about that. Needless to say if he EVER appear, there will be even more shipping branches, thus more headache.  
**

**My motto is to respect each ship and refrain from bashing them, but doesn't mean I'll use that pairing or even implying it ^_^**


End file.
